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ILLUSTRATED 
WITH NUMEROUS MAPS AND ENGRAVINGS. 



WA^WtMiSTOM^ 



Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 




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i^Ic^-O 




ABBOTT'S AMERICAN HISTORIES. 



I.— ABORIGINAL AMERICA. 
11. — DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 
III. — THE SOUTHERN COLONIES. 
lY. — THE NORTHERN COLONIES. 
Y. — WARS OF THE COLONIES. 
Yl. — REVOLT OF THE COLONIES. 
YH.— WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 
VIII. — WA SHIN GTON. 



£ntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 
JACOB ABBOTT, 

In th« Clerk's Office of the EHstrict Court of the United States, for the 
Southern District of New York. 






PREFACE. 



It is the design of this work to narrate, in a 
clear, simple, and intelligible manner, the leading 
events connected with the history of our country, 
from the earliest periods, down, as nearly as prac- 
ticable, to the present time. The several volumes 
will be illustrated with all necessary maps and 
with numerous engravings, and the work is in- 
tended to comprise, in a distinct and connected 
narrative, all that it is essential for the general 
reader to understand in respect to the subject of 
it, while for those who have time for more extended 
studies, it may serve as an introduction to other 
and more copious sources of information. 

The author hopes also that the work may be 

found useful to the young, in awakening in their 

minds an interest in the history of their country 

and a desire for further instruction in respect to it. 

Vhile it is doubtless true that such a subject can 



VI PREFACE. 

be really grasped only by minds in some degree 
mature, still the author believes that many young 
persons, especially such as are intelligent and 
thoughtful in disposition and character, may derive 
both entertainment and instruction from a perusal 
of these pages. 

I have been greatly assisted in the preparation 
of th? concluding volumes of this series by the vast 
stores of information in respect to the history of the 
American revolution collected with so much indus- 
try, and arranged and illustrated with so much 
accuracy, taste and skill, by Lossing, in his Field- 
Book of the Revolution. For felicity of descrip- 
tion, copiousness and interest of detail, philosophic 
clearness of narration, and graphic power of deli- 
neation, both with pencil and pen, in picturing the 
scenes and incidents described, it stands at the head 
of works on the history of this country, and forms 
an inexhaustible treasury of useful and entertaining 
information in respect to the events, the actors, and 
I he scenes, of revolutionary history, equally attrao 
live to old and young. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

BARLY LIFE. 

rhe Five Periods of Washington's Life. — B.rthplace ot 
Washington. — The Mother of Washington. — His School. 
— ^Washington's Brother Lawrence. — The Estate at 
Mount Vernon. — Tlie Fairfax Family. — Washington's 
Connection with the Fairfax Family. — General Geo- 
graphical Features of Virginia. — The Lands of Lord 
Fairfax. — Organization of an Exploring and Surveying 
Party. — The Surveying Party. — Description of the Map. 
—Various Adventures. — Mode of Living. — Qreenway 
Court ., 15 

CHAPTER ir. 

THB VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

Situation of the Valley. — Value of this Western Territory. 
— Conflicting Claims of the French and of the English to 
the Possession of the Valley. — Merits of the Question.— 
Rights of the Indians. — Advantageous Position of the 
French in entering into the Contest. — Disadvantages of 
the English Situation.' — Formation of the Ohio Company. 
— Employment of Washington by the Ohio Company. — 
Appointment of George Washington to a Mihtary Com- 
mand. — His Mihtary Studies. — Death of Lawrence 
Washington. — Mount Vernon. — Preparations for War.— 
Reluctance of the People of the Colony to undertake tho 
War. — The Cooperation of the other Atlantic Colonies 
obtained. — Interference of Jursdiction and Authorit/ 



Vm CONTENTS. 

PAOK 

during the "War. — DiflSculties of being at the same time 
Many and One. — General Course and Result of the "War. 
— The Part performed by "Washington. — Nature of his 
Services. — Occasion of the First Battle and Victory. — 
Advance to the Attack. — Return of "Washington to Pri- 
vate Life 33 

CHAPTER in. 

LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

The Toung "Widow. — Crossing the Ferry. — Mrs. Custis. — 
The Acquaintance Agreeable. — Tlie "White House. — 
"Washington elected a Member of the Legislature. — 
"Washington's Aversion to Public Speaking and to Occa- 
sions of Parade and Display. — The Marriage. — Establish- 
ment at Mount Vernon. — Plantation Life. — System of 
Commercial Exchange. — Practical Inconveniences of the 
System. — Specimens of the Correspondence. — The Estate 
at Mount Vernon. — Horses and Carriages. — Dogs and 
Hunting. — Fishing. — Busy Life. — Daily Routine at Mount 
Vernon. — Visits and Company. — Belvoir. — Visits to An- 
napolis. — Public Duties. — Plan for reclaiming the Dis- 
mal Swamp. — Exploration of the Swamp. — Expedition 
to the Valley of the Ohio. — Adventures in the Valley. 
—Voyage down the River. — Danger. — Duration of the 
Period of Quiet Life at Mount Vernon. — Movements that 
preceded the Revolution. — Meeting of the First Conti- 
nental Congress. — Appointment of Commander-in-Chie£ 
— Farewell to Mount Vernon 60 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE REVOLUTION. 

Qualities Necessary in a Commander-in-Chief. — Incipient 
Difficulties. — Conflicts of Authority. — Mrs. "Washington's 
Visit. — Mount Vernon ia Danger. — Arrival of Mrs. 
"Washington at Cambridge. — IiJuence of Mrs. "Washing- 
ton iu Camp. — Calk for U ^Ip and Protection from the 



CONTENT? IX 



Coast. — Insubordination and Unmanageableness of the 
Men. — No Ammunition. — Necessity of remedying these 
Evils without making them known. — Washington 
almost in Despair. — Discontent and Dia'satisfacliou of the 
People. — Final Triumph of the Army before Boston. — 
The Contest for the Possession of New York. — Washing- 
ton is overpowered by the Difficulties of his Situation. — 
A Party beginning to be formed against him. — The 
People not to be too severely censured for their Doubts 
and Misgivings. — The Character of Washington re- 
trieved. — Character and Motives of Washington's Ene- 
mies. — The Third Dark Period of the Revolution. — The 
Opposition revived. — Such an Opposition Unavoidable. 
— Measures resorted to by tlie Party opposed to Wash- 
ington. — General Gates. — General Conway. — End of 
General Conway. — Conway's Letter 93 

CHAPTER V. 

NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

Chronology. — Complicated Nature of the Negotiations. — 
Implication of other Governments in the Quarrel. — The 
Case of Holland. — Henry Laurens. ^—Capture of Laurens. 
— He remains Faithful and Firm. — The Capture of the 
Papers leads to the War between England and Holland. 
— Various Complications. — Party Conflicts in Congress 
in respect to the Appointment of Commissioners. — The 
Commissioners. — Benjamin Franklin. — Complications and 
Difficulties on the British Side. — The Question in Parlia- 
ment. — Effect of the Surrender of Cornwallis. — An Alter- 
native still presented. — Attempt to separate America 
from France. — Attempt to negotiate witli Washington 
and Congress. — The Three Essentials. — Technicalities 
dnd Points of Etiquette. — True Character of the French 
Intervention. — Interference of French »nd American In- 
terests in the Question of Peace. — The Western Bound- 
arj'. — Tiie Fisheries. — Diplomacy. — Claims of Compensa- 
tion for the American Loyalists. — Terms of the Treaty 



I CONTENTS. 

VAsm 

flimlly iij^nHxl iipoii. — Txnix I'rolnuition of the Nogo- 
tiatioiiH. — Kiiial Witlidrawitl ofllu^ i<rtli»h Army 122 

' ciiArrKK VI. 

■r II IC 1) 1 K II A N I) I N (1 »» K r II K ARMY. 

RoHif.'jiiMl.ioM of WiiHliingloii.- 'I'lio Niiliiro of tho Gronttiosa 
of Wiushinj^loii. — AHH»uii|iliiiiis ofotluT Foundors of Em- 
pire. — 'I'lio SdlilitM-.s. — Tlio llovolt ill 1181. — (■ausoa of 
tlu) Rovoll.. — Why (Ioiikiohh could not lu't olVootuiiUy. 
— 'I'iio OrisiH. — l)uiip;or Jiiul Dillii'iiity of tlio Situation.— 
Wii.sliinglon'H Dimji'or.- -lOudouvor oi' Hio British to tako 
AtlvMiititKo of tlio nill\cuUy. — Mouauroa mioptod by 
Waaliiu^lon. — Tlio Muliniu'ia ooino to ii Stand at I'rinoo- 
ttm. — Opi'uin^f of llio t'onloronooa. — Dologalion from 
Coii^.'fit'sM. -'I'lio l'",Miirt.sari(>,s IVoin tlio Hritiali Army. — 
I'li'.sidoul Uood and lli(> Ucloijalion. — 'flio Contoronoo. — 
'I'lm Itiitish Af^onts. — Ui>\viirds otVorod lor tlio Appro- 
lioiision ol' tlio S(>ios. -Just I'lstimntion of llio (."onduiit 
»»f tlio MutiiuH>rH.- tii'ii<>ral nisooutont of tlio Army 
toward tlio tll(>.4i> of tlio War. — llonoral Wnsliington'a 
UoiiionHlr.'inooH. — Sonn< Hinall Kxouso for (lio liiju.'^tioo, — 
'i'ln> I'lopor Ivoinody. — Spooiiil Kxortiona m.'ido l>y Wiish- 
iiiKlon to «vi>rl tho Uann^'r. — l''urloU(j;ha. — Tliro.-itontHi 
t'oiispiraoy aiiiont;; tlu> Troops. — .Anonymous .\ildros,><o8 
oinnlatod in (\imp. — (.'oiuhiot of Wasliiiifjtou in U»o 
Kmorjfonoy. --Wa.sliiiifjton'H Krtii<\voll to tho .Vriny. — 
WaHhinnloii's I'lirtiii^; with his tItlUHM's. — Sottlomoi\t of 
llii< .\ooount.>i.- l'"in;(l Uosij'nation. — Tlio Coivinony. — 
Ki'iuni to Mount V 0111011 1 50 

cMi.\rrKK vii. 

r 11 K C O N V K l> K K A V O N . 

I'hroo Sui-oos.sivo Forms of l\>ml'iiiatioii adoploii by tli« 
StAlo.i. I'^ssontial PitVonmoo In tho Naturo o( tlu^so Sys- 
toms,- -Naluro of a I'onfodoration. — Tho lUiiou, — l")ur«- 
Uou iJ" tho I'outimntrtl Cougivsii, — Fii-sl Movouiout iu 



■• / 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAoa 
Favot o.'a Coufederation. — Debates on the Subject in the 
Coutiuental Congress. — Articles of Confederation adopted 
and proposed to the States. — Provisions of the Proposed 
Confederation. — Majority required. — The States Equtvl 
under the Confederation. — No Executive Department.^ — 
Common Citizenship. — Restrictions on Separate State 
Sovereignty. — Provision for the Settlement of Questiona 
of Controversy arising between one State and another. — 
The Articles of Confederation adopted by Congress and 
transmitted to the States. — Little Advantage gained. — 
Influence of Peace and War in respect to the Operation 
of the American System of Government. — Termiiuition 
of the Revolutionary War. — Resignation of the Secretary 
of the Treasury. — The Army. — A state of completely 
suspended Animation reached at last — Subjects de- 
manding Attention from the General Government during 
these Times. — General Conviction of the Necessity that a 
Stronger Government should be Established. — Shays's 
Insurrection. — The General Government Powerless. — 
The Insurrection subdued. — All Confidence in the Con- 
federate Government finidly lost 1 8i 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE UNION. 

Origin of the Convention. — Difficulties in the Way. — Great 
Importance attached to the Idea of State Sovereignty. — 
General Character of the Convention. — Injunction of 
Secresy. — Jealousy of State Rights and State Sovereignty. 
— Political Conservatism. — The Question of Aristocracy 
and Democracy. — IMveisities of Opinion in respect to 
Details. — Parties. — The Large and Small States. — Free 
and Slave States. — Navigation Laws — Wise Counsels 
prevail in the End. — The Two Compromises. — General 
Features of the System that was adopted. — Surrender 
of Power by the States. — The Judicial Department. — 
The Plan submitted to the Coniederate Congress. — The 
Salification. — Election of President 210 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

Departure of Washington from Mount Vernon. — Escort of 
Neighbors and Friends. — Washingtou'.s Reply. — Progress 
of the Journey. — Universal Enthusiasm. — Celebration at 
the Bridge at Trenton. — Arrival at New York. — En- 
trance into New York. — The Barges. — The Landing. — 
The Procession to the Governor's. — The Inauguration. — 
Administration of the Oath. — Rejoicings. — Concluding 
Ceremonies. — Influential Men associated with Waabipg- 
ton in the Government. — John Adams — Alexander 
Hamilton. — The Federalist. — Hamilton's Public Career. 
— His Untimely End. — The Fundamental Question of 
Politics. — Opinions of Adams and Hamilton. — A Mon- 
archy Impossible — Opinions of Jefferson and Madison. 
— Equal Political Rights for All Men the only Safe Pol- 
icy of Government. — The only Just as well as the only 
Safe Policy.— The Right of Suffrage the Safeguard of the 
Poor. — Position of Jefferson in Washington's Govern- 
ment. — James Madison. — Incipient Divergency of Poli- 
tical Opinion. — The First Test Question. — Adams's 
Opinion. — Hamilton. — Jefferson. — Gradual Formation of 
the great Federal and Democratic Parties 233 

CHAPTER X. 

WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 

Soon put to the Test. — The Anglo-Saxon Principle of Gov- 
ernment. — The Principle acknowledged and acted 
upon by the English People. — Different Modes of ascer- 
taining the National Will. — The Consent of the Gov- 
erned. — Examples in Point. — The General Government 
of the United States. — The General and Local Interests 
requiring a Different Provision. — Fundamental Idea of 
the General Government. — Question of the Seat of Gov- 
erameut. — The City of Washington. — Transfer of the 
Government to Washington 272 



LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. 



DESIGNER. PAOB 

PoETUAiT OP Wabiiinoton H. W. llerrick. .Frontispieco. 

Map 29 

Washington's First Combat H. W. llerrick 55 

Ahkivai. ok Mus. Washington in Camp. . . H. W. llerrick 97 

FuANKLiN AND Tilt! Electbioal KiTE 11. W. Ilerrick 131 

Wabhington Presidentelect II. W. Herrick 241 

30>SB OF Bbpbbszntatiy SB IN SESSION . . . . U. W. HeiTlok 919 



WASHINGTON. 

. •♦»♦•« 

CHAPTER I. 

BARLT DAYS. 

TBe FIVE PERIODS OP WASHINGTON'S LIFE. 

The life of George Washington, to which the 
remarkable succession of striking scenes and inci- 
dents which it presents, impart, in general, an 
extremely picturesque and dramatic character, re- 
sembled the dramas of the poets in this additional 
particular, namely, that it naturally divides itself 
into five quite distinct, and in some respects strongly 
contrasted, portions as follows. 

1. The years of his childhood and youth. 

2. His first public career as a civil and military 
officer in the service of the British and colonial au- 
thorities against the French and Indians in the val- 
ley of the Ohio. 

3. A period of eighteen years of private life 
spent on his estate at Mount Vernon. 



16 EARLY DATS. 

4. His military career during tlie Avar of the 
revolution. 

5. The period of his civil services in the work 
of organizing and administering the government of 
the United States under the federal constitution. 

It is with this last portion of the history of 
Washington that we have most to do in this volume, 
— considered as a continuation of the narrative of 
American History, which was brought by the last 
volume to the close of the war of the revolution. 
In order however to understand and appreciate the 
course which Washington pursued in the last great 
act of the drama, we must consider somewhat par- 
ticularly the previous portions of his life, with a 
view of tracing the course of experience, discipline 
and trial by which he was prepared to pursue the 
line of action at the end of his career, which has 
given him the very exalted place he occupies in 
history, and made him the admiration of mankind. 

BIRTHPLACE OP WASHINGTON. 

George Washington lived, in his early childhood, 
with his father and mother and brothers and sisters, 
in an old fashioned Virginia farm house on the 
banks of the Potomac not far from its mouth. The 
house had a roof sloping behind almost down to tho 



EARLY DAYS. 



17 



ground, and the chirnnejs were built outside of it, — 
one at each end, against the wall, according to the 
fashion which then prevailed in Virginia. The 
building was old at the time of Washington's birth, 
and has long since entirely disappeared. A de- 
scendant of the family has however placed a large 
stone tablet upon the spot, which is marked with 
this inscription : 



1 


Here, 




The 


1 1 th of February, 


i732> 


GEORGE WASHINGTON 




Was Born. 





THE MOTHKR OF WASHINGTON. 



The Washington family removed from the house 
near the mouth of the Potomac where Washington 
was born, while he was yet a mere child, and went 
to live in another very similar house near the town 
of Fredericksburg. There, before many years, his 
father died, and Washington was left almost under 
the sole charge of his mother. She was a most 
excellent woman, and devoted all her time to the 
care and instruction of her children. She took the 
utmost pains to instill into their minds the principles 
of virtue, and to train them to habits of industry, 



18 EARLY DAYS. 

})unctuality, and scrupulous faithfulness in the per- 
formance of every duty. It was to the training 
that this most excellent mother gave to her son that 
the full development of those exalted qualities of 
mind and heart which subsequently gave him so 
vast an ascendancy over the minds of his country- 
men, was in a great measure due. 

HIS SCHOOL. 

The school which George attended when he was 
a boy, was of a very humble character. It wiis 
kept in a small country school-house by the way- 
side, not far from his mother's house. The teacher 
was the sexton of the parish. His name was 
Hobby. At this school Washington learned tlie 
elementary branches of education — reading, writing, 
arithmetic and accounts. His mother devoted a 
great deal of attention to him in respect to the 
preparation of his lessons, and trained him to the 
habit of taking great pains with every thing that 
he did, of fulfilling every allotted task to the very 
best of his ability, and of never allowing himself 
to carry in to his teacher any careless, hasty, or 
ill-executed work. So well indeed was his work 
done at this time that lie and his mother felt an 
interest in preserving many of his books of school 
exercises, on account of their very neat and correct 



EARLY DAYS. 1 

appearance ; and they have been kept to this day, 
and are now shown to visitors at Mount Vernon, 
among other mementos and souvenirs of the great 
statesman's life. 

Washington's brother lawrence. 

The oldest of George's brothers was named 
Lawrence. He was strictly speaking only a half 
brother, as he was born during a previous marriage. 
He was also fourteen or fifteen years older than 
George, and so was never by any means a com- 
panion or playmate for him. Thus the relation 
that he sustained to George was more like that of 
an uncle than of a brother. He was however very 
fond of George and took great interest in his wel- 
fare. Being the oldest son, he was considered, 
according to the English ideas which then prevailed, 
as in some sense the head of the family, and was 
sent to England to be educated. 

He returned from England when George was 
about seven or eight years old, and immediately 
formed a strong attachment to his little brother, 
and ever afterward, as long as he lived, took a great 
interest in him. 

THE FSTATE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

Not long after Lawrence Washington returned 
to Virginia, he joined the English army and went 



20 EARLY DAYS. 

to the West Indies, where a war was raging between 
England and Spain. The commanding officer of 
the squadron in which he served was Admiral 
Vernon, and Lawrence seems to have become 
strongly attached to him. The war did not con- 
tinue long, and when peace was made Lawrence 
Washington returned to Virginia, to his brother 
George's great joy. He established himself upon 
an estate which he possessed on the banks of the 
Potomac, and named the place Mount Vernon, in 
honor of Admiral Vernon, the English officer under 
whom he had served in the West Indies. 

This estate ultimately descended to his brother, 
the hero of this narrative, and has since become 
world renowned, and specially sacred in the minds 
of all Americans, as the home during bis life and 
the place of sepulture after his death, of the father 
of his country. 

Very soon after his establishment at Mount 
Vernon Lawrence Washington was married to Miss 
Anne Fairfax, the daughter of Sir William Fairfax, 
an English gentleman of wealth and high station, 
who resided upon an estate named Belvoir, which 
was situated on the banks of the Potomax; some 
miles below Mount Vernon.* 

♦ The place was so named from Belvoir CaaJe, one of tba 



EARLY DAYS. 21 

THE FAIRFAX FAMILY. 

Sir William Fairfax was the cousin of Lord 
Fairfax, an English nobleman, who had inherited 
an immense tract of land in Virginia which had 
been some years previously granted to his ancestors 
by the crown. 

About the time of the marriage of Miss Anne 
Fairfax to Mr. Lawrence Washington, Lord Fairfax 
came himself to America to visit his estates. He 
was entirely at liberty to roam over the world as 
he pleased, being possessed of a large fortune and 
having no family. Indeed he was somewhat uneasy 
and discontented in England from the effect of a 
bitter disappointment in love which he had met 
with when a young man. On his arrival in Vir- 
ginia he was greatly impressed with the magnifi- 
cence of the country in general, and the grandeur 
of his own domains, which included a vast tract of 
charming ground lying between the rivers Potomac 
and Rappahanock, He took up his residence for a 

most celebrated aucieut castlt'3 of England, and one of the most 
magnificent at the present day. It is the residence of the Duke 
of Rutland, and is situated in the eastern part of the island on 
the confines of Lincolnshire. Tlie name — originally a French 
one, given to the vale which the castle overlooks, and to the 
castle itself, by "William the Conqueror, or by his Norman 
followers — has been anglicised in pronunciation, in modern 
times, inlo Beovor Cnstle, and Beevor Vale. 



22 EAKLY DAYS. 

time at Belvoir, with his cousin Sir William, where 
he supplied himself with horses, dogs and hand- 
some equipages, in the English style, and devoted 
himself to fishing, hunting and the other athletic 
sports of which English country gentlemen are so 
fond. 

Washington's connection with the Fairfax family. 

George Washington, who at this time resided 
frequently at his brother Lawrence's at Mount 
Vernon, was of course a frequent visitor at Belvoir, 
where both Lord Fairfax and Sir William became 
well acquainted with him, and he soon began to be 
quite a favorite with them, as it seems he was, even 
in those early days, with all who knew him. He 
used to accompany the gentlemen on their hunting 
expeditions, and often rendered them great service 
by his intimate knowledge of the country, and 
by the fertility of his resources in the various 
emergencies and exigencies of life in the woods. 
Although yet quite young, being at this time only 
about fifteen or sixteen years of age, he was well 
grown and strong. He was an excellent rider. He 
could easily manage any horse they gave him, and 
he galloped on after the game, over the most diffi- 
cult and rugged ground, with so much courage and 
skill as greatly to please his older companions. 



EARLY DAYS. 23 

With all this he was extremely careful and con- 
siderate, — he took no useless risks, and evinced in 
his whole conduct and demeanor a degree of calm- 
ness and deliberation in all difficult and trying 
emergencies, and a soundness of judgment, above 
his years. Lord Fairf^ix became greatly interested 
in the young man, and strongly attached to him. 

GENERAL GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES OF VIRGINIA. 

By carefully examining any map of Virginia 
with reference to the mountain chains and the flow 
of the rivers, the reader will observe that there are 
two ranges of mountains, or rather of mountainous 
country, extending from north-east to south-west 
in the interior of .the state, and a wide valley 
between them. This valley is called the valley of 
the Shenandoah, from the river of that name which 
flows through it. This valley opens to the north- 
ward, where the Shenandoah empties into the 
Potomac. 

The mountains on the east side of this valley are 
those of the Blue Ridge, while the west side of it it 
bounded by the ranges of the Alleghany mountains. 

To the eastward of Blue Ridge the land slopes 
and the rivers flow toward the Atlantic Ocean, and 
to the west of the Alleghany Mountains the slope 
is toward the valley of the Ohio. 



24 EARLY DAYS. 

Thus the territory of Virginia consists of an 
eastern slope of land inclining toward the sea, — a 
"western one descending into the valleys of the Ohio 
and the Mississippi, — and a great valley between 
them, opening toward the north and carrying ita 
waters by the river Shenandoah into the Potomac. 

THE LANDS OF LORD FAIRFAX. 

Almost all the settlements which existed in Vir- 
ginia, in Washington's early days, were on the 
eastern slope. The western slope was almost 
entirely in the possession of the Indians. Even 
the valley of the Shenandoah between them was 
very little inhabited by white men, although various 
adventurers and backwoodsmen had found their 
way into it, — some to trade with the Indians for 
furs, others to find fertile lands where they could 
settle and make their farms without having any 
purchase-money to pay. The log huts of these 
people were scattered here and there over the terri- 
tory, in openings which they had made in tho 
woods, and there were roving bands of Indians^ 
also, who roamed about by the paths which they 
had made through the forests, or paddled up and 
down the rivers in their birch canoes. 

The vast tract of land which Lord Fairfax 
claimed extended beyond the Blue Ridge into thia 



EARLY DAYS. 25 

valley, but the portion beyond the mountains had 
never been surveyed, and had been very imperfectly 
explored. In the meantime, as has already been 
said, roving adventurers were beginning to go in 
and establish themselves in the country, choosing 
of course the choicest sites, and it was to be feared 
that if they were allowed to continue their illegal 
possession too long, they might claim a right to the 
property, and it might become very diflficult in the 
end either to compel them to pay the price for the 
land which they occupied, or to eject them from it. 

ORGANIZATION OP AN EXPLORING AND SURVEYING PARTY. 

Under these circumstances Lord Fairfax proposed 
to young Washington the plan of organizing an 
exploring party to proceed into the Shenandoah 
Valley, there to survey and take possession of the 
lands belonging to him, with a view to the formal 
assertion of his rights as owner of the property, 
and to prepare the way for regular sales of the 
lands to future settlers. Washington readily under- 
took the work. He was admirably well qualified 
for it. He had taken great interest in studying 
the science and art of surveying, and the inspection 
of some of the field-books which he had kept made 
80 strong an impression upon Lord Fairfax's mind, 
and gave him so high an idea of his young friend's 



26 EARLY DATS. 

science and skill as to satisfy him that he was well 
qualified for the work which he proposed. 

Young Washington, though still only fifteen or 
sixteen years of age, was of an athletic and 
vigorous frame. He was accustomed to life in the 
woods. He was prudent, grave and cautious in hia 
conduct to a degree entirely beyond his years. The 
plan was accordingly decided upon, and the arrange- 
ments were at once made for carrying it into effect. 
Washington was to receive about fifteen dollars a 
day for his services during the time that he should 
be gone. 

THE SURVEYING PARTY. 

Young Washington had one companion on this 
expedition in the person of George William Fairfax, 
the son of Sir William. He was a few years older 
than Washington himself. In addition to these 
two the party comprised some attendants. Others 
were to be obtained in the country to be surveyed. 
A considerable number of followers and assistants 
are always required on such expeditions as these. 

Besides the necessity of a company for the pur- 
pose of mutual aid and protection in a journey 
through so wild and lawless a country, the simple 
business of running a line with compass and chain 
through the woods requires a party of several m *a 



EARLY DATS. 27 

to carry it forward promptly and with despatch. 
There must be two chainmen, one for each end of 
the chain, — and a compass man to carry the com- 
pass, and to set it, when it is required to regulate 
the direction of the line run — and two or three axe 
men, to go forward and clear the way when neces- 
sary, and also to fall trees across small streams to 
serve as bridges for the party to pass over. The 
surveyor himself cannot perform any of these duties, 
for he must carry the field-book, and must be inces- 
santly employed in making notes in it of the 
distances run, the streams crossed, the quality of 
the land, the character of the timber, the situation 
of waterfalls where mills might be built, and other 
such particulars. 

Besides the number of persons actually employed 
in the process of surveying, there are others neces- 
sary to carry the provisions required for the party, 
or the guns and ammunition for procuring food from 
the forest. 

It is not to be supposed however that Washington 
took all this force with him, from Mount Vernon 
and Belvoir. He relied in a great measure for 
these purposes on the aid that he could obtain in 
the valley itself from the settlers, and from the In- 
dians, whom it waa necessary sometimes to employ 
as guides. 



28 EARLY DATS. 

DESCRIPTION OP THE MAP. 

The adjoining map shows the situation of the 
Shenandoah Valley in reference to the eastern slope 
of the territory of Virginia. It also shows the 
position of Mount Vernon, and of the Fairfax resi- 
dence of Belvoir just below it on the banks of the 
Potomac. The letter W marks the point on the 
banks of the river where the city of Washington 
was afterward built. Further down the river, and 
pretty near the mouth of it, the reader will see 
that the birthplace of Washington is indicated, and 
also, in the interior, the town of Fredericksburg, 
near which he lived a long time with his mother, 
after his father's death, and where he went to school 
to Master Hobby. 

VARIOUS ADVENTURES. 

It was in the month of March that this exploring 
tour was commenced. It occupied a period of 
several weeks, at the end of which time the party 
returned. Washington encountered a great variety 
of experiences and adventures during his absence, 
but he accomplished the purpose of his mission in 
a very satisfactory manner. 

Sometimes he and his companion found a lodging 
for the night in the hut of a settler, though even 
in these cases, instead of occupying a bed, they 




^eHP'^^"" . 



80 EARLY DATS. 

usually lay down at night upon blankets, bear-skina 
or straw, with the members of the family, — men 
women and children, and perhaps other strangers, — 
bestowed in a similar manner all around them, the 
forms of the sleepers under their rude coverings 
revealed by the flickering light of the fire. 

They met occasionally with companies of Indians, 
and at one time they encountered a party of thirty 
warriors returning from some expedition, bearing a 
scalp for a trophy. These Indians at their encamp- 
ment cleared a space of ground, built a fire in the 
centre, and sat around the fire in a circle, and 
thore, to entertain Washington and his companions, 
went through with some of the wild ceremonies of 
savage life, which were intermingled with frightful 
war-whoops and yells, and hideous dances. 

MODE OP LIVING. 

The party depended for food almost wholly upon 
the game they could shoot, consisting chiefly of 
wild turkeys and other birds. Provided with sup- 
plies of such food as this, they gathered round 
their carap-fire at night and prepared their suppers, 
each one cooking for himself his own portion by 
means of a forked stick with which the strip of 
flesh was held before the glowing embers of the 
fire. 



EARLY DAYS. 31 

GREENWAY COURT. 

Lord Fairfax was much pleased with the report 
■which Washington brought back of the result of 
liis labors, and with the account which he gave of 
the beauty and richness of the country, and he 
determined to go into the valley himself and build 
a residence there. He did in fact afterward select 
a spot near where the town of Winchester now 
stands, and he erected some buildings preliminary 
to the construction of the intended mansion. He 
put up a suitable house for his servants, and 
stables for his horses, and kennels for his dogs, and 
also a small structure apart from the rest, contain- 
ing a sleeping room for himself, and also an oflSce, 
in which he transacted business with his tenants 
and the men in his employ. The name which ho 
gave the place was Greenway Court. 

Here he lived for several years, and Washington 

was a frequent visitor at his "quarters," as he 

called them, and was employed a great deal in 

making explorations and surveys of the surround- 

ag country. 

The mansion itself, of Greenway Court, whicli 
it w as at this time the intention of Lord Fairfa,x 
to construct, was to be built in the style of English 
country residences of the highest class; and so 
magnificent was the scale on which the wealthy 



32 EARLY DATS 

nobleman formed his plan that he se^ apart a tract 
of land — most fertile and picturesque in its char- 
acter — of ten thousand acres, to form the domain 
to be attached to the residence. 

The building was, however, never erected. The 
whole plan shared the fate of the thousand other 
attempts which have been made from time to time 
to introduce the ideas and usages of the feudal 
aristocracies of Europe into the new world. Those 
ideas and usages are old trunks which have great 
vitality where they stand, but cannot bear trana- 
plautation to another Goil. x 



CHAPTER II. 

THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

SITUATION OF THE VALLEY. 

The vallej of the Shenandoah, as has already 
been explained, lies between the Blue Ridge and 
the Alleghany Mountains ; while beyond the Alle- 
ghany mountriins the land slopes toward the west, 
and opens into the great valley of the Ohio. On 
the hither side of these mountains the waters all 
flow to the northward and eastward, and find their 
way ultimately to the Atlantic Ocean. Beyond 
them the course of the streams is to the westward 
and southward into the valley of the Ohio, and 
thence through the vast basin of the Mississippi to 
the Gulf of Mexico. 

VALUE OF THI8 WESTERN TERRITORY. 

The interest which this territory, or rather that 
portion of it which forms the valley of the Ohio, — 
the only part which in these early times had yet 
come seriously into question, — possessed in the 
minds of the colonists on the St. Lawrence and on 



34 THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

the Atlantic seaboard, arose not so much from ita 
prospective value as a home for European settlers, 
as from the vast supplies of fiirs which might at 
that time be drawn from it. The land was fertile 
and the forests luxuriant, and thej were filled with 
wild animals of every kind, some of which pro- 
duced furs which were of great value in Europe. 
The country was inhabited by roving tribes of 
Indians, who indeed cleared and cultivated some 
small patches of land, but who left far the larger 
portion of the forests undisturbed, except to hunt 
and trap the animals tliat inhabited them, as they 
depended mainly upon the products of the chase for 
food and clothing. They were extremely skilful in 
trapping the fur-bearing animals, and they had the 
art of curing the peltry which they obtained so far 
as was necessary for its safe transportation to 
Europe, where the skins were manufactured into 
the most soft and luxurious furs, and sold at an 
enormous profit. 

The profit was all the greater on account of the 
very insignificant value of the merchandise given 
to the Indians in exchange for the skins, which 
consisted chiefly of glass beads, gaudy colored 
calicoes, cheap ornaments such as rings, bracelets, 
chains and the like, and spirituous liquors of 
inferior quality and of very trifling cost. 



THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 35 

Thus the main object for coveting the possession 
of the valley of the Ohio in the early days of 
Washington was to gain the control of the fur trade 
with the Indians that inhabited it. 

CONFLICTING CLAIMS OF THE FRENCH AND OF THE ENGLISH TO 

THE POSSESSION OF THE VALLEY. 

Both the French and English claimed this terri- 
tory. The ground of the French claim was that 
they first discovered and explored the river Mis- 
sissippi, and according to the ideas in respect to 
discovery and dominion which then prevailed, any 
power whose subjects first discovered a river became 
entitled to jurisdiction over all the country drained 
by the waters of that river. 

Now, as is related in a former volume of this 
series, a French explorer had gone down with a 
party in a boat, from the French settlements on the 
western Likes, until he reached the Mississippi, and 
had descended for some distance along its course. 
This vested the title to the whole country drained 
by the river, including the valley of the Ohio as a 
portion of it, in the French king, — subject of 
course to such rights of occupancy as were pos- 
sessed by the Indians. 

The English on the other hand maintained that 
in taking possession of any portion of the sea-coast 



36 THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

of a continent, and establishing colonies thereon, a 
power became entitled not only to the land actually 
occupied by them, but to the territory contiguous 
to it, to an indefinite distance into the interior, and 
that no other European power could rightfully 
interfere with them, by penetrating into the interior 
by circuitous routes, as the French had done, and 
were attempting to do. In other words, they 
claimed that each was entitled to all the territory 
lying directly back of the portion of the sea-coast 
which they respectively possessed, and no more. 

MERITS UF THE QUESTION. 

In a word, the French claimed a right to the 
land on account of having first discovered the rivers 
that drained it. The English on the ground of 
having first settled the sea-coast which fronted it. 
Of course there was no possibility of settling such 
a question as this by argument. Nor even if 
reasoning and argument could have led never so 
certainly to a solution, would it have made any 
difference in the result. Here were the pioneei 
settlements of two of the most ambitious and power- 
ful nations in the world approaching, on different 
sides, a vast, rich and mainly unoccupied country, 
one teeming, too, with wealth all ready to bo 
gathered. The only possible way, as human nature 



THE VALLEY OP THE OHIO. 37 

Is, of settling the question which should seize the 
prize, was to ascertain by actual trial which was 
the strongest. 

It is true that some time was spent at the outset 
in arguments and negotiations, — but the object of 
such discussion on each side was only to amuse and 
occupy the attention of the other until the prepara- 
tions for the more serious work could be properly 
made. Each party immediately commenced making 
their arrangements for advancing into the disputed 
territory with a military force sufficient to hold it 
against all attempts of the other to dispossess them. 

RIGHTS OF THE INDIANS. 

It must be admitted in justice to the parties con- 
cerned that neither the French or English abso- 
lutely disregarded the claims of the Indians to the 
land in dispute. They admitted that the Indians 
had certain rights of occupancy in the country of 
their forefathers which they were bound to recog- 
nize and to provide for in some amicable manner. 
In respect to their own rights of discovery and first 
possession — those of the English based on their 
occupancy of the coast, and those of the French on 
their discovery of the rivers — all that each power 
claimed was that its title was good as against all 
other European powers claiming to make settle- 
4 



38 THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

ments in the new world. The title of the Indiana 
to the land was to be extinguished, so far as it 
should be necessary to extinguish it, by friendly 
negotiations with them and treaties. 

These negotiations with the Indians both parties 
commenced and eagerly prosecuted during the time 
while they were making their preparations for the 
great contest with each other. They convened 
councils of tiie tribes, and sent commissioners to 
them with presents of wampum, trinkets, gunpowder 
and rum, to buy over the chiefs, and with smooth 
words and pretences of disinterested friendship to 
cajole the people. The English called themselves 
the Indians' brothers. The French styled the 
governor of Canada the Indians' father. Each 
made treaties of a more or less formal character, 
with diflferent tribes inhabiting the country, under 
which they put forwaid claims to this and that 
district of country, or to the exclusive right of 
trading at this or that station, and they argued 
these claims both with the Indians and with one 
another in a very serious manner. 

This was, however, after all mere by-play. The 
real question, and the only real question at issue, 
was which of the two powers was to prove strong 
enough to expel the other from the territory in 
dispute with bullets, bayonets and artillery. 



THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 39 

tDVANTAGKOUS POSITION OP THE FRENCH IN ENTERING INTC 
THE CONTEST. 

In the preliminary movements and negotiations 
which preceded the great conflict of arms by which 
it was destined that the question was finally to be 
settled, the French seem to have had greatly the 
advantage, on account of the situation of the 
country in dispute in respect to their possessions on 
the St. Lawrence. The valley of the Ohio wag 
separated from the English settlements by the 
ranges of the Alleghany Mountains, — which could 
only be traversed by means of a few difficult and 
dangerous passes. On the other hand the valley 
was entirely open to access from the region of the 
St. Lawrence and the lakes, the whole region on 
that side being level or gently undulating, and 
being traversed by multitudes of streams navigable 
for canoes, which greatly facilitated the movements 
of expeditions of all sorts, and the transportation 
of supplies. The French, too, were much more 
successful than the English in cultivating the 
acquaintance and friendship of the Indians. The 
country which their settlements occupied was more 
favorably situated for the fur trade on account of 
the immense extent to which it could be penetrated 
by bateaux and canoes, and also to the greater 
abundance of the fur bearing animals in the country 



40 THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

bordering the northern lakes and rivers than in the 
region occupied hj the English colonies on the 
Atlantic seaboard. The French, too, were more 
inclined to fraternize with the Indians, to fall in, 
good-hum oredl J. with their customs, and to adopt 
their modes of life. Sometimes a French trader 
joined the Indian tribes and lived with them for a 
time altogether, adopting their dress and their mode 
of life, and learning their language. In other 
cases persons who had been taken captive and held 
as prisoners contrived to ingratiate themselves into 
the favor of their captors, and after living with 
them a long time, and becoming thoroughly ac- 
quainted with their language, their ideas, their 
customs of war and diplomacy and their modes of 
life, would finally obtain their release and return to 
the French settlements, and would afterward render 
the most important services to their countrymen as 
interpreters for embassies sent or received, or as a 
medium of communication in a great variety of 
negotiations. 

DISADVANTAGES OF THE ENGLISH SITUATION. 

The English enjoyed few of these facilities. They 
were obliged in attempting to form alliances with 
the Indians to make long and difiicult journeys by 
land, — over rough and dangerous roads, consisting 



THE VALLEY OP THE OHIO. 41 

only of the paths made bj the buffaloes through 
the woods or the trail of the Indian warriors ; and 
when thej reached the place where the council was 
to be held were comparatively much in the dark in 
respect to the true interpretation which thej were 
to put upon the incidents that occurred, or the 
appearances that were presented, and to the course 
which it was proper to pursue to influence the 
decisions of the savage chieftains whose favor they 
were seeking. 

FORMATrON OP THE OHIO COMPANY. 

The hold which the French had already obtained 
m the valley, by their traders and hunters, and by 
certain small military expeditions which they had 
sent into it from time to time to take possession of 
particular points, to buijd log forts and block- 
houses, and to establish friendly relations with the 
Indians, was such as to render it unsafe for indi- 
vidual English settlers to attempt to go in alone 
and unprotected, and accordingly one of the first 
plans which was adopted by the governor and lead- 
ing men of Virginia was to form a combination 
with a view of advancing into the country in con- 
siderable forc«. For this purpose a company was 
organized by a number of men of influence and 
of property in Virginia and Maryland in connection 



42 THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

with a London capitalist, for organizing settlements 
on a considerable scale in the valley. The associates 
were incorporated under the name of the Ohio 
Company. They obtained a grant from the King 
of England of five hundred thousand acres of land 
to be selected by themselves in any part of the 
country west of the Alleghanies and on the banks 
of the Ohio. Among the other conditions of the 
grant to which the company agreed, they bound 
themselves to settle not less than one hundred 
families upon the land within seven years, and also 
to build a fort, and to garrison it with a sufficient 
force to defend their settlements from the Indians. 

EMPLOYMENT OF WASHINGTON BY THE OHIO COMPANY. 

Lawrence Washington, George's brother, was one 
of the most prominent of the Virginia members of 
this company, and he tdbk a very active part in the 
management of its affairs. Through him George 
Washington became greatly interested in it, and 
was employed by the company in various missions 
and negotiations, for which his knowledge and sound 
judgment in respect to land, and his familiarity 
with life in the woods, and with the habits and 
usages of the Indians, eminently qualified him. 

He was also sent on several important missions 
ftt different times by the governor of the colony. 



THE VALLEY OF THE OHCO. 43 

En the course of these expeditions he suffered many 
hardships and exposures, and met with many narrow 
escapes; but his prudence, his caution, and more 
than all, perhaps, the influence and effect of that 
calm and quiet energy, courage and self-possession, 
which so strongly marked his character, carried him 
safely through them all. 

APPOINTMENT OP GEORGE WASHINGTON TO A MEJTART 
COMMAND. 

These various embassies and missions sent into 
the valley led to no result, except to show that the 
French were determined to insist upon their title 
to the country, and the Virginia government began 
to make vigorous preparations for war. Wash- 
ington had taken so prominent a part in the pre- 
liminary operations, and had evinced such excellent 
qualities that, though he was not yet twenty years 
of age, he was appointed by the governor to take 
charge of the military organization of one of the 
districts into which the State was divided. His 
title was Adjutant-General. He was proposed for 
ihis appointment by his brother Lawrence, who 
continued to take the warmest interest in his 
welfare and advancement, and the governor con- 
ferred it without hesitation. 



44 THK VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

niS MILITARY STUPIESn. 

Wa^liiuirton iiuniediately engagtxi with groat anloi 
m tho pertormautv of the duties of his office, which 
related to the work of organizing and equipping 
the militia of his district. At the same time he 
devott\l himself very assidtiously to the study of 
tiie art of war. There were among Lawrence 
Washington's acv|uaintanees two former comrades 
of his who had returneil with him fi-oni the West 
Indies and were living in Virginia. One was 
Adjutant ^[use. an Englishman, and the other a 
Putehman named A'an Braum. who professixl to be 
ai\ accomplished swordsman, and who was at that 
time indeet^l gaining his livelihooil by giving fencing 
lessons. 

"Washington innuediately employixl these men as 
his teachers. .Vdjutant Muse brought him books 
treating of military tactics and the mancouvres of 
bodies of men in the field, and g-ave him all neces- 
sjiry instruction and guidance in the perus;il of 
tliem. Van Braum taught him fencing and other 
similar military arts. Washington devoted himself 
wholly to these pui-suits, and the house at Mount 
Vernon assumeii for the time being the apj>e;utmce 
of a military station, wheiv nothing was to In? seen 
or heaa\l but the gv.)ing and coming of milit;iry me«- 



THK VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 45 

6engers conveying orders, and the drilling of men 
in the exercises of arms. 

DI'^ATIl OK LAWKKNOK WASHINGTON. 

These pursuits, iiowcver, were interrupted for a 
time by the sickness of Lawrence Washington, and 
by tiie departure of George with him on a voyage 
to the West Indies for the recovery of his health, 
Lawrence had been for some time in a decline, and 
his physicians now ordered him to a change of 
climate as the only means of saving his life. He 
wished to have his brother George accompany him, 
and George readily consented to do so. It was in 
1752. 

Tiie brothers spent the winter in Barbadoes. 
Toward the spring Lawrence being somewhat better, 
but considering it still too early to return to Vir- 
ginia, and feeling lonely and ill at ease under so 
long a separation from his wife, determined to go to 
Bermudii, and to send to Virginia to bring his wife 
to Bermuda to meet him there. George accordingly 
returned to Mount Vei-non, and not long afterward 
Lawrence himself returned, with barely strength 
enough remaining to reach his home. He died a 
very short lime after his arrival. 

The bereavement involved in this event was for 
Georjie like the death of a father. He had first 



46 THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

come under the care of his brother while he him- 
self was quite a child and his brother a full grown 
man, and ever since that time Lawrence had fulfilled 
toward him with great fidelity and sincere affection 
all the duties of a parent ; and George looked up 
to him, as long as he lived, with a species of filial 
veneration. 

MOUNT VERNON. 

After the death of his brother, George Wash- 
ington became the head of the family at Mount 
Vernon, as the executor of Lawrence's will and the 
legal protector of his wife and infant daughter. 
His brother had made him also prospectively the 
heir to the property, which accordingly in due time 
descended to him. He thus at this time entered 
into possession of Mount Vernon and continued his 
possession — for a time as executor and guardian 
and afterward as proprietor — to the close of his life- 
There he died and there his remains have rested 
undisturbed to the present day. 

PKEPARATIONS FOR WAR. 

As it had become evident on all sides that the 
question of the title to the valley of the Ohio could 
only be settled by war, both parties immediately 
began to prepare for the contest. The Ohio Com- 



THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 47 

pany commenced preparations for building a fort 
at the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany 
where these two rivers form the Ohio, near the 
point where the town of Pittsburg now stands. 
The French advanced their posts into the disputed 
territory on several different lines, and built forts 
and block-houses, and established military stations 
at all important points. 

During the time while these preparations were in 
progress, both parties were busy in carrying on nego- 
tiations with the various tribes of Indians inhabiting 
the country, calling councils of the most influential 
chiefs, and sending them presents of such articles 
and commodities as they deemed most likely to 
please such savages, — guns, powder, shot, knives, 
blankets, gaudy calicoes and cloths, cheap but showy 
trinkets, and, worst of all, rum. At these councils 
each party attempted to convince the Indians that 
they were their friends, and only wished to come 
into their country out of disinterested love for the 
red man and desire to benefit him, and that the 
other party were dangerous enemies to the Indians, 
men of reckless and desperate character, who 
wished to force their way into the region in order 
to dispossess the Indians of their lands, and who 
fvould not shrink from any treachery or cruelty to 
accomplish their ends. 



48' THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

RELUCTANCE OF THE PEOPLE OF THE COLONY TO UNDEBTAKB 
THE WAR. 

It was the rojal governor of Virginia and not 
the legislature or the people of the province that 
chieflj urged on the work of expelling the French 
from the vallej of the Ohio. The people of the 
province, with the exception of a comparatively 
small number of hunters and Indian traders, were 
contented with their own homes on the eastern 
side of the Alleghanies, and were not much dis- 
posed to incur the cost and submit to the great 
sacrifice of life which tliey foresaw would be in- 
evitable, in a cause in which the extension and 
future glory of the British empire was much more 
the object at stake than any direct or practical 
interests of theirs. 

But the royal governor, acting as the 'royal 
governors of the province generally did, in the 
interest of the crown, and not in that of the people 
of the colonies, was eager in pressing on the prepara- 
tions for war. The legislature were slow in respond- 
ing to his urgency. They were reluctant to vote 
money or to raise men. They even made the gov- 
ernor indignant by seeming to doubt after all 
whether the English title to the valley was so 
absolutely clear as he regarded it. Finally, how- 
ever, a certain sum was voted, and authority was 



THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 49 

given ivo raise men. The men were induced to enlist 
by promises of land when the possession of the 
country should be secured, and the awkward squads 
of rough farmers' boys and backwoodsmen which 
were thus recruited were organized, disciplined and 
trained, as well as they could be, by Wuvshington, 
with the assistance of Adjutant Muse, Van Braum 
and other such aids. 

THE COOPEEATION OF THK OTHER ATLANTIC COLONIES 
OBTAINED. 

Governor Dinwiddie took active measures to 
secure the aid of the governors of the other colonies 
which lay contiguous, on their western border, to 
the valley of the Ohio — more particularly those of 
Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York — and they 
all in the end took a more or less active part in the 
war. Some aid certainly, but with it a great deal 
of embarrassment and confusion of counsel, arose 
from the cooperation of so many distinct parties 
and powers in the conduct of the campaigns. At 
one time during the course of the war a convention 
was held of no fewer than six governors of as many 
independent States to consult on the measures to be 
adopted, and to make the necessary arrangements 
for carrying them into effect. As the home govern- 
ment was also represented in this convention, we 
5 



50 THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

li;ive here a congress of seven distinct and in some 
respects independent powers, all more or less 
suspicious and jealous of each other, and without 
any real head, to plan a military campaign — a 
work which of all human undertakings requires 
most absolutely the unity of purpose and design 
which can only be secured through the action of a 
single judgment, and the prompt resolution of a 
single will. 

INTERFERENCE OP JURISDICTION AND AUTHORITY DURING TUB 
WAR. 

Indeed the greatest source of delay, difficulty and 
embarrassment from which the English and colonial 
armies suffered during the war, was the interference 
of jurisdiction and authority on the part of the 
powers which were engaged in prosecuting it. The 
home government made a distinction which they 
insisted on maintaining between the officers who re- 
ceived their commissions from the crown, and those 
who were in the colonial service, — as they did also 
between the regular English troops which were sent 
out from England, and the colonial soldiers, which 
last the regular army looked down upon with some- 
thing like contempt. Then the troops furnished by 
tlie different colonies, were under their own officers, 
who were each tenacious of his own authority and 



THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 51 

jealous of the others. During the whole course of 
the war of the Revolution Washington seems to 
have met with more serious embarrassment and with 
greater obstacles to his success from difficulties 
arising from such sources as these than from all 
the military operations of the enemy. 

DIFFICULTIES OF BEING AT THE SAME TIME MANY AND ONE. 

The original settlement of this country by a very 
large number of distinct and separate colonies, re- 
sulting as it did in the establishment of so many 
distinct, and, for many of the functions of govern- 
ment, independent states, operates very decidedly 
for the benefit of the whole population in times of 
peace and general security, since it enables each 
separate community to shnpe its institutions and con- 
duct its industrial pursuits in its own way, accord- 
ing to the varying tastes and habits of the people, 
or the difierences of climate, soil and other physical 
conditions under which they live. But it has al- 
ways been a great source of embarrassment and 
difficulty in times of insurrection or war, and indeed 
in all cases where the combined action of the Avhole 
has been necessary to secure some common good, 
or to defend the country in general against some 
common danger. This evil was felt quite seriously 
in this war with the French and Indians, and still 



52 THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

more seriously in the war of Independence, twenty 
years later, as we shall presently see. 

GENERAL COURSE AND RESULT OF THE WAR. 

The war which was commenced in the valley of 
the Ohio, in the manner thus described was con- 
tinued for many years. The general course and 
the final result of it have been described fully in 
the history of the wars of the colonies, given in a 
previous number of this series. It is sufficient here 
to say, that in all their operations in the valley of 
the Ohio, the original scene of the conflict, the Eng- 
lish were for a long time entirely unsuccessful. Ex- 
cept in certain subordinate and restricted operations 
which were committed to Washington's charge, the 
narrative for several years relates little else than a 
series of disasters. 

Tlie French built and garrisoned a strong fort at 
the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany, 
which they named Fort Du Quesne, in honor of the 
governor of Canada, and for a long time they re- 
sisted all the efforts of the British and colonial for- 
ces to dispossess them. 

At length, however, in 1758, three years after the 
commencement of the war, the fort was taken, and 
as it formed in a great measure the key to the val- 
ley, the fall of it was a fatal blow to the French 
power in the western country. 



Till': VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 53 

The English moreover finally determined to at- 
tack the French dominion in North America at the 
head and centre of it, and to inake an end of it for- 
ever. They fitted out a grand expedition in Eng- 
land — a naval and military force combined — to cross 
the Atlantic, ascen<l the St. Lawrence and attack 
the cities of Quebec and Montreal, with a view of 
totally subverting the French power on the conti- 
nent. The attempt was successful. Quebec and 
Montreal fell and with their fall the French power 
was destroyed, and then the whole country passed 
unquestioned into the power of the conquerors. 

THE PART PERFORMED BY WASniNGTOIT. 

Washington himself was engaged during the war 
only in the campaign on the Ohio, and though the 
operations in that region were so long unsuccessful, 
the part which he performed in them was marked 
by so much prudence, wisdom, courage and energy, 
that though the commanders under whom he served 
incurred much discredit for their failures, he him- 
self acquired a great military reputation, not only 
among his countrymen in Virginia but abroad. It 
was a rare instance af military fame acquired by 
connection with campaigns and operations which 
ended almost entirely in disaster and defeat. 



54 THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

NATURK OF HIS SERVICES. 

Sometimes detached commands for the accom- 
plishment of special objects were committed tc 
Washington's charge. These he managed success- 
fully. And oftener still his coolness, self-possession 
and quiet energy were called into requisition to 
save remnants of defeated bodies of men, after 
battles lost through the self-conceit or recklessness 
of the English officers his superiors. It was on an 
occasion when he held an independent command of 
a small body of men, on a sort of scouting expe- 
dition at the very commencement of the war, that 
he fought his first battle and gained his first victory, 
which, although the whole operation was on a very 
small scale, yet occurred at a time and under 
circumstances which attracted great attention to it, 
throughout the country, and formed quite a brilliant 
commencement to the military fame which he subse- 
quently acquired. 

OCCASION OF THE FIRST BATTLE AND VICTORY. 

Washington was marching at the head of a small 
force through the woods toward the station at the 
junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany which 
was the great object of contention at the beginning 
of the war, and where hostilities had already com- 
menced. After going on for some days among 



^> 



Iv, 



THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 57 

forests and mountains, he learned that a French 
force was hovering near him, watching no doubt for 
a chance to surprise him. 

One dark and rainy night, about nine o'clock, 
some friendly Indians came into his camp and 
informed him that they had discovered where this 
French detachment were. They had encamped, 
they said, in a low bottom land, near the river, in 
a place shut in by rocks and thickets, and if he 
wished to attack them tliey offered to go with him 
and assist him. There was, moreover, a body of 
Indians not far away who were ready, they alleged, 
to join him in such an attempt. 

ADVANCE TO THE ATTACK. 

Within an hour from the time of receiving thia 
intelligence Washington had aroused his men, organ- 
ized a guard to be left behind to defend the camp, 
and was ready to commence his march with the 
rest. They moved on silently through the woods, 
fn utter darkness, groping their way as well as they 
could along the Indian trail, in mud and rain. The 
force consisted of forty men. 

The little column reached at length the camp of 
the Indians who were expected to cooperate with 
them. The Indians were all ready to join them. 
Washington then first sent on scouts to reconnoitre 



1)5 THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 

the French encampment, and finding everything 
favorable he led his men forward to the attack. 
The assailants advanced in two separate parties, 
each creeping cautiously through the woods in 
single file, the Indians in one line and Washington's 
men in the other. 

The enemy, who had considered the security of 
their hiding place perfect, especially in such a 
night of wind and rain, were totally unprepared 
for their coming. Their surprise was complete. 
They, however, rushed to their arms and attempted 
to form and defend themselves. The contest, in 
fact, continued for about a quarter of an hour, when 
their leader being killed, and quite a number of the 
men having also fallen, the rest fled, in hopes of 
finding the means of concealment or escape in the 
surrounding forest. They were, however, soon 
overtaken and made prisoners. 

Washington treated his prisoners with great 
kindness, attending carefully to the vounded, and 
supplying the wants of the two surviving officers 
from his own private means. He sent them all to 
Virginia. Their arrival excited great attention, 
and brought Washington very conspicuously before 
the people of the colony. The number of prisoners, 
including the two officers, was twenty-one. 



THE VALLEY OF THE OHIO. 5& 

RETURN OF WASHIN'GTON TO PRIVATE LIFE. 

Washington took a very active and conspicuous 
part in the operations which in the end resulted in 
the capture of Fort Du Quesne, by which the war, 
so far as Virginia was concerned, was substantially 
closed. He then resigned his commission, and 
returned to Mount Vernon a private citizen, — highly 
respected and honored, not only by the people of 
Virginia but throughout the whole land, on account 
of the very important services that he had rendered^ 
and the exalted qualities which he had displayed. 



CHAPTER III. 

LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 



THE YOUNG WIDOW. 



About the time of Washington's leaving the army 
and returning to civil life in his home at Mount 
Vernon, be was married. The circumstances under 
which his engagement to the lady was formed were 
somewhat romantic. 

It was in 1758, near the close of the period of 
his military service, that he had occasion to make 
a journey to Williamsburg, the capital of the state, 
on some urgent business with the governor relating 
to the organization of the army. He travelled on 
horseback. In the course of this journey, through 
circumstances entirely accidental, he met with a 
very interesting young widow, then Mrs. Martha 
Custis, who, though at that time little aware of 
what was before her, was destined to become in the 
end a very renowned historical personage under the 
name of Martha Washington. 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 61 

CROSSING THE FERRY. 

Colonel Wiishington, for that was then his title, 
made this journey, as has already been said, on 
horseback. In the course of it, and on his approach 
toward Williamsburg, he came to the river Pamunky, 
a branch of the York River. This river he was to 
cross, from the county of King William to that of 
New Kent, by a ferry, and then to go down on the 
southern side of the river to Williamsburg. He 
wore his usual military dress, which of course de- 
noted his rank, and being also attended by a mili- 
tary servant was marked at once as a person of 
distinction. It happened that there was also on 
board of the ferry boat, making the transit of the 
river at the same time, a gentleman of the vicinity, 
a planter, who returning home from some short ex- 
cursion reached the ferry at the same time >vith 
Washington. He was attracted by Colonel Wash- 
ington's appearance, and entered into conversation 
with him ; and at length as they drew near the 
shore, he earnestly invited Washington to stop and 
dine with him at his house which was not far off. 
Washington at first declined the invitation, saying 
that Lis business was urgent and that it was impor- 
tant that he should lose no time. 

Mr. Chamberlayne, however — for that was the 
stranger's name — earnestly pressed him to accept 



62 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

the invitation, sajing that it would detain him very 
little to stop an hour or two for dinner, and for the 
rest and refreshment of his horse, and that he mijiht 
if he chose resume his journey immediately after- 
ward. With this understanding Washington con- 
sented to the proposal, and on landing from the boat 
the whole party went together to Mr. Chamber- 
lay ne's house. 

MRS. CUSTIS. 

They found some company here, and among the 
guests was Mrs. Custis. Although she had two 
children and had been a widow about three years 
she was still young and beautiful. She had dark 
hazel eyes and hair, her countenance was agreeable, 
her form was particularly graceful, and her manners 
and address were marked with that frank and win- 
ning cordiality which is often characteristic of the 
ladies of the southern states, and which places the 
stranger or the new acquaintance entirely at his 
ease in their company, and invests the lady herself 
with an indescribable charm. 

THE ACQUAINTANCR AGREEEABLE. 

After dinner. Bishop, Washington's servant, ac- 
cording to tiie orders which he had received from 
his master on their arrival, brought the horses to 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 63 

the door, and there they remained a long time, while 
Washington continued in conversation with the 
young widoAV, and with tlie other guests. The time 
passed very pleasantly, and at length Washington 
was urgently pressed to send the horses away and 
spend the night at the house. Th!s he finally con- 
sented to do. The horses were put up. Washing- 
ton remained during the afternoon and evening with 
the family, and resumed his journey the next morn- 
ing, after taking leave of his friends, and promising 
to visit Mrs. Custis at her residence. 

THE WHITE HOUSE. 

The residence of Mrs. Custis was known as the 
White House — the name which in later times 
became the popular designation of the Presidential 
mansion in Washington, on account of the color of 
the material, — white marble, — of which it is con- 
structed. The White House of Mrs. Custis was 
situated in the immediate neighborhood of Mr. 
Chamberlayne's. and was the family mansion per- 
taining to a large and rich plantation left to Mrs. 
Custis by her husband. 

In the course of a few months following Wash- 
ington's first interview with Mrs. Custis at Mr. 
Chamberlayne's, he visited her several times at her 
residence, in passing to and fro, on journeys made 



64 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

necessary by the public business in whioh he wjis 
eng-agoil, and it was soon undei-stood throughout the 
wide circle of acqutiintAnces and friends with which 
the parties were connected that they were engaged 
to bo married. 

WASillNGTON KLKCTRD A MKMISKU OF TnK LEGISLATURE. 

Some months before this time, w^hen Washington 
found that the period was dmwing near for his 
retirement from tiie army and return to the pursuits 
and occupations of civil lifo, he had offered himself 
as a candidate for election to the legislature for the 
County of Fre^lerie, in the valley of the Shenan- 
doah. Winchester was the chief town of thia 
county, and here Washington had had his head- 
quartei-s for considerable periods at different times, 
so that in addition to the general military fame 
which he had acquired he was personally known to 
most of the people of this district. 

The elections in those days were conductoil, it 
seems, in the English style; that is, it was cus- 
tomary for the candidates to meet large assemblies 
of the voters, convened in the streets and in other 
public places, to harangue them on questions of 
public policy, and to expound and vindicate the 
principles on -vhich the speaker pledged himself to 
act if elected ; and then, after the election, the sue- 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNCN. 65 

cessFul canJidate was placed in a chair and borne 
on the shoulders of his party friends, in a proces- 
sion about the town, with acclamations of triumph. 
Washin^^ton was away on a campaign at the time 
when the election came on. His superior officer 
gave him leave of absence in order that he might 
attend at the polls, according to the custom. He, 
however, declined to avail himself of this permis- 
sion, and sent another gentleman as his repre- 
sentative. This proxy made the speeches, and gave 
the entertainments, and distributed the largesses 
usual on such occasions; and finally, after the 
election was carried in Washington's favor, he was 
borne about upon the chair by the triumphant 
party, and received the customary plaudits and 
acclamations in his principal's name. 

Washington's aversion to public speaking and to occa- 
sions OF PARADE AND DISPLAY. 

It is probable that Washington was very willing 
to escape being personally present at this scene, aa 
he had no fondness for public exhibitions or parades 
of any kind, and he had no special facility in 
making speeches to popular assemblies, especially 
on occasions of ceremony and form, when no prac- 
tical question was at issue. 

So little was he, in fact, at this period of his life, 



66 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

accustomed to such performances, that when subse- 
quently he went to take his seat in the legislature 
he was placed in quite an embarrassing situation. 
The legislative body had determined to mark his 
entrance among them with some token of their 
respect for the distinguished military services which 
he had rendered to the colony; and when he 
appeared to take his seat, and the oath was about to 
be administered, the speaker, according to previous 
arrangement, received him with an address of com- 
pliment and welcome, to which it was of course 
proper that he should make some reply. He 
accordingly attempted to speak, but he soon became 
so embarrassed that he was utterly unable to pro- 
ceed, and the speaker was obliged to interpose and 
invite him to take his seat, saying to him that " his 
modesty was equal to his valor, which was more 
than words could express." 

THE MARRIAGE. 

The marriage of Washington took place early in 
January, 1759, at the White House, and was cele- 
brated with all the festivities and rejoicings usually 
attendant on such an occasion in those days upon 
the great plantations in Virginia. Mrs. Custis'a 
]:)lantation was very large and very valuable ; and 
in addition to this landed property her husband had 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 67 

left her and the children nearly two hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars in cash investments. Of thia 
property one-third fell to Mrs. Custis and two-thirds 
to the children, but on the marriage of Washington 
the whole came into his possession as the husband 
of the lady, or into his custody as guardian of the 
children. 

One of the children was a boy six years of age, 
the other a girl of four. These children grew up 
under the charge of their new father. The daughter 
afterward died at the age of nineteen, and the son in 
early manhood, leaving descendants however, now 
well-known in Virginia. / 

ESTABLISHMENT AT MOUNT VEKNON. 

The White House was not very far from Williams- 
buTg, then the seat of government of Virginia, and 
during the time that the legislature continued in 
session, which was about three months, Washington 
made his home at the residence of his bride. At 
the end of that time he took her with him to Mount 
Vernon, and there they lived together in peace and 
happiness for many years. 

PLANTATION LIFE. 

Life on a plantation is always characterized by 
striking peculiarities, and these peculiarities were 



68 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON, 

more strongly marked in those days than they arc 
now. There were then no manufictories of any 
kind in America. The policy of the British gov- 
ernment liad always been to prevent by every pos- 
sible means the fabrication of anything whatever in 
this country, with a view of compelling the people 
to depend upon the merchandise of England for 
their supplies of every kind, except agricultural 
products raised by the cultivation of the ground. 

The result was that the Virginia planters could 
neither produce themselves nor easily procure any- 
where in this country, anything for their families 
and their laborers but food. They depended for every 
thing else almost altogether on the tobacco which 
they could raise and send to the English market. 

SYSTEM OP COMMERCIAL EXCHANGE. 

The small farmers usually sold their tobacco to 
the merchants in the sea-port towns, and procured 
supplies for their families from the very moderate 
stocks of foreign goods which these merchants had 
imported and kept on hand. The planters who 
owned large estates and many slaves, operated on 
a greater scale. They sent their crops of tobacco 
directly to England — sometimes in their own vessels 
— ^and imported in return directly to themselves 
the foreign articles which they required. 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 69 

PRACTICAL INCONVENIEKOES OF THE SYSTEM. 

Of course with such a mode of doing business, 
the members of a family to be supplied could have 
very little opportunity of selection in respect to the 
articles which they required, and very little control 
over the returns they were to receive, either in re- 
gard to quality or price ; and in case of any dis- 
satisfaction it must have been an extremely incon- 
venient and embarrassing circumstance that it 
required the sending of a complaint a distance of 
three or four thousand miles, and the lapse in time, 
of several months, to obtain redress. 

Washington was remarkable during every period 
of his life for the method and system which he ob- 
served in the conduct of all his business affairs, and 
the care with which all his papers were arranged 
and preserved. There remain at the present day at 
Mount Vernon, files of his correspondence, and 
among them are various letters to and from his 
London agent, which give us a very distinct idea of 
the manner in which the business was conducted, 
and also preserve some specimens of the complaints 
for which the remissness or unfaithfulness of the 
London agents not unfrequently gave occasion. 
The following letters somewhat abridged are ex- 
amples : 



70 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

SPECTMENS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 

" WiLLiAMSBtjEG, 1 May, 1759. 
" To RoBEKT Caet, Merchant, London. 

" Sir, — The enclosed is the clergyman's certifi- 
cate of my marriage with Mrs. Martha Custis, prop- 
erly authenticated. You will therefore for the future 
please address all your letters which relate to the 
affairs of the late Daniel Parke Custis to me, as by 
marriage I am entitled to a third part of that estate, 
and am invested likewise with the care of the other 
two-thirds by a decree of our General Court, which 
I obtained in order to strengthen the power I before 
had in consequence of my wife's administration. 

'•At present this serves only to advise you of 
the above change, and at the same time to acquaint 
you that I shall continue to make you the same 
consignments of tobacco as usual, and will endeavor 
to increase them in proportion as I find myself and 
the estate benefited thereby. 

"On the other side is an invoice of some goods 
which I beg you to send me by the first ship bound 
either for the Potomac or to the Rappahannock, as 
I am in immediate want of them. Let them bo 
insured, and in case of accident, re-shipped without 
delay. Direct for me at Mount Vernon, Potomac 
River, Virginia. The former is the name of my 
seat, and the other of the river on which it is sit- 
uated." 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 71 

About a year after this he had occasion to write 
substantially as follows : 

"By this conveyance you will receive invoices 
of such goods as are wanting, which please to send 
as there directed by Captain J., in the spring, and 
let me beseech you to give the necessary directions 
for purchasing them upon the best terms. It is 
needless for me to particularize the sorts, qualities 
or taste I would choose to have them in, unless my 
directions are observed; and you may believe me 
when I tell you that instead of getting things good 
and fashionable in their several kinds, we often 
have articles sent us that could only have been used 
by our forefathers in days of yore. 

" It is a custom, 1 have some reason to believe, 
with many of the shopkeepers and tradesmen of 
London, when they know goods are bespoken for 
exportation to palm sometimes very old, and some- 
times very slight and indifferent ones upon us — 
taking care at the same time to advance ten, fifteen, 
or perhaps twenty per cent, upon them in price." 

TIIK ESTATE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

Although Washington continued to have charge 
of the plantation at the White House which now 
belonged jointly to him and the two children, hia 



72 LIFE AT MOtNI VERNON. 

established home was from this time the estate at 
Mount Vernon, and a more delightful residence fof 
a gentleman possessed of wealth and fond of rural 
occupations and amusements it would be diJEcult to 
imagine. 

The estate was very large, extending for miles 
along the bank of the river, and comprising every 
variety of soil and scenery. There were beautiful 
lawns bordered and adorned with copses of trees 
and shrubbery near the mansion, and extensive 
fields of arable land, for the cultivation of corn and 
tobacco, and wide tracts of forest land, well stocked 
with deer, foxes, partridges, pigeons and other 
game. There were hamlets of cottages, and cabins 
occupied by the overseers and laborers scattered 
here and there, with winding roads leading through 
most picturesque and varied scenery from one to 
another, and granaries for the storage of corn, and 
presses and warehouses for packing and preserving 
the crop of tobacco. 

The mansion was situated upon a gentle swell of 
land near the river, sufficiently elevated to com- 
mand a wide and charming view. It was spacious 
and convenient, and was amply provided with all 
the ap{)ointments and appurtenances necessary for 
the uses of a numerous family and for the parties 
of visitors which were often to be entertained there. 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 73 

Nothing seems to be wanting to make such a 
plantation as this in such a climate, and so ex- 
tremely profitable in its productions, a ptiradise 
upon earth, but the system of calling the laborers 
together on Saturday night, and paying them the 
fair and honest wages that they have earned, — and 
the peace and mutual satisfaction and content which 
such a system brings with it. 

HORSES AND CARRIAGES. 

Washington's mind was of a cast which inclined 
him to simplicity and plainness in his habits and 
style of living, but such were the usages of tliose 
days among persons of wealth and distinction in 
Virginia, — derived probably in a great measure 
from the influence of English manners upon them, 
through the intercourse of the colonists with English 
gentlemen of rank, many of whom as officers of the 
government or of the array, or landed proprietors, 
were much in this country at this time, and ex- 
ercised a great ascendency over fashionable society 
in all the colonies, and in none more so than in 
Virginia — that Washington in falling in with these 
usages to such an extent as was natural and proper 
for one in his position, lived in a style at Mount 
Vernon whicii would by no means be considered at 
the present day particularly simple and plain. H« 
1 



74 LIFE AT MOUNl VERNON. 

had an elegant carriafje and four for the use of Mrs. 
Washington and her guests, with all the appoint- 
ments and equipments of the most complete and 
fashionable character, according to the ideas and 
customs of London. The orders which he sent out 
for these things are still, many of them, extant in 
his letter books, and they show that he attached 
great importance, not only to the substantial quality 
of the articles ordered, for service and use, but to 
the freshness and fashionableness of them in respect 
to style. 

In addition to his carriage horses he had in his 
stables an ample stock of saddle horses and hunters. 
In all his excursions and journeyings he was ac- 
customed to go on horseback, having become greatly 
habituated to that mode of conveyance in the course 
of his military campaigns. Indeed any general 
officer after long service in active operations becomes 
so accustomed to his horse, that he often feels much 
more at his ease in the saddle than he does upon 
the cushions of any carriage. 

Some idea of the figure which Washington made 
when mounted for the purpose perhaps of making 
a visit to some of his neighbors, or of accompanying 
his wife and children in a drive about the estate, 
may be formed from the items of the orders which 
he sent to England, about these days. In one of 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 75 

them he specifies " A man's riding saddle, large 
plated stirrups, and every thing complete ; — a 
double reined bridle and Pelham bit, plated ; — a very 
neat and fashionable Newmarket saddle-cloth; — a 
large and best portmanteau ; — a cloak bag, surcin- 
gle, checked saddle-cloth, and holsters; — a riding 
frock of a handsome drab colored broadcloth, with 
plain double gilt buttons; — a riding waist-coat of 
superfine scarlet cloth and gold lace, with buttons 
like those of the coat ; — a blue surtout coat ; a neat 
switch whip — silver cap ; and a black velvet cap 
for servant." 

DOGS AND HUNTING. 

Washington was fond of hunting, having acquired 
a taste for this amusement in his early intercourse 
with the Fairfax family at Belvoir, and at Green- 
way Court ; and besides the horses adapted to this 
sport which he kept in his stables for the use of 
himself and his friends and visitors, he maintained 
a large number of dogs, in kennels built for the 
purpose ; and in the proper season he used often to 
go out with them in pursuit of foxes, partridges 
and other game. The estate comprised a large 
extent of woodland diversified with wild scenery of 
every kind, in the deep ravines and other shady 
recesses of which large numbers of wild animals 



76 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

found hiding places and food, and furnished for 
Washington and his guests abundance of game. 

FISHING. 

The waters of the river, also, and of the various 
creeks and inlets that flowed into it from the 
grounds of the estate, abounded with fish of every 
kind. These waters were very extensive. Wash- 
ington calculated that in all there was a length of 
ten miles of shore line washed by tide- water on his 
domain ; so that not f nly could vessels of consider- 
able burden come up directly to his wharf, to un- 
load their cargoes of supplies for him, and receive 
in return the products of the estate, but there was 
also a wide range for navigation by boats between 
the different portions of the estate, and facilities 
were afforded for charming aquatic excursions. The 
planters living on the river used to provide them- 
selves with handsomely ornamented boats for these 
purposes, with elegant appointments throughout, 
and crews of negroes, regularly uniformed, and 
trained as oarsmen, Jike a boatswain's crew of a 
man-of-war. 



Although in comparison with military campaigns 
in the valley of the Ohio this life at Mount Vernon 
was quiet and retired, it was by no means an idle 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 77 

one. On the contrary, the daily routine of duty 
devolving upon Washington at this time, in the 
personal supervision of the Mount Vernon estate, 
in the general charge of the White House property, 
and in the public duties of various kinds which still 
devolved upon him, gave full occupation to all his 
powers, and made his life an extremely busy one 
The plantation itself of Mount Vernon was 
quite a little kingdom. It was divided into several 
distinct farms, each of which had its own separate 
set of laborers and superintendents, and its separate 
system of management and of accounts, according 
to the different articles of produce which the various 
divisions respectively afforded. Then there was 
timber to be cut in the woods and sawed into beams 
and boards for new buildings which were from time 
to time required ; casks and barrels were to be 
made for the packing of tobacco and flour ; smoke- 
liouses were to be built for the curing of bacon, 
which was one of the chief articles of food for the 
laborers ; the tobacco was to be gathered, dried and 
packed, the flour ground and barrelled, and the 
casks and barrels, after being properly marked a.nd 
branded, were to be shipped, the flour to the West 
[ndies and the tobacco to London, and regular bills 
of lading to be made out and forwarded by mail. 
All this business was carried on under the close and 



78 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON'. 

constant supervision of Washington himself, with 
that perfect method and system, and that careful 
attention to details which so strongly marked his 
character. He kept all the accounts, inspected all 
the operations, watched for the appearance of every 
abuse, and kept every man up to his duty, in a fair 
and impartial, but in a very strict and energetic, 
manner 

DAILY ROUTINE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

He rose early so as to obtain an hour or two 
before breakfast for writing and accounts. His 
breakfast was in winter at eight and in summer at 
seven. After brenkfast he mounted his horse and 
rode around the estate to inspect the operations that 
were going on in the various departments. He 
went to the stables to see that the horses were 
properly cared for ; to the kennels to bid good- 
mornino; to the dogs and to see them fed : to the 
fields wliere gangs of laborers were at work plowing 
the ground, or planting or hoeing the growing 
crops ; to the forests where the slave carpenters 
were cutting or hewing timber ; to the blacksmith'8 
and cooper's and joiner's shops to see that every- 
thing was going right in them; to the different 
negro quarters to inspect the condition of the huts, 
and especially to visit any w ho might be sick, and 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 79 

to see to it personallj that everything necessary for 
their comfort and for tlieir recovery was supplied ; 
and finally to reconnoitre the outer boundaries of 
the estate, in order to watch for and to warn off 
trespassers upon the forest, lands, or fishing grounds. 

He returned to the house a little past noon for 
dinner, and then devoted the afternoon either to a 
continuation of the duties of the morning, or to 
work in his library upon his correspondence and 
accounts, — or to accompanying his family in some 
visit to a neighboring plantation, or other excursion 
of pleasure. 

At the close of the day the family met around 
the tea-table, and all retired early to bed. 

VISITS AND COMPANY. 

Notwithstanding the almost incessant demands 
which these numerous duties made upon the time 
and attention of Washington, he was still called 
upon by the usages of the country at that period 
to devote no small portion of many days to making 
and receiving visits, and to the duties of hospitality 
and of social intercourse. The visitors that he 
received were sometimes the fiimilies belonging to 
the neighboring plantations, or to more distant parts 
of Virginia, and sometimes English gentlemen — 
either persons officially connected with the govern- 



80 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

ment of the colony, or travelers who had come out 
to visit it for purposes of business or pleasure. 



The place in the neighborhood where the Wash- 
ington family were perhaps most intimate was 
Belvoir, the residence of Washington's early friend 
Sir William Fairfax. This estate, it will be recol- 
lected, was situated a few miles below Mount 
Vernon on the banks of the river, and the two 
families were at this time very intimate with each 
other. They interchanged many visits, and formed 
together hunting parties and boating parties and 
excursions of all kinds, in which very often dis- 
tinguished visitors from the mother country took 
part, and were always prominent objects of interest 
and attraction to the native Virginians. 

VISITS TO ANNAPOLIS. 

The nearest large town to Mount Vernon where 
fashionable life was exhibited on any considerable 
scale was Annapolis, then as now the capital of 
Maryland. Here in the winter season, when the 
legislature was in session, a very considerable circle 
if genteel society was accustomed to assemble, con- 
sisting of the members of the colonial government 
and their families, and wealthy country gentlemen 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 81 

of the neighborhood who often came with their 
wives and daughters to spend the winter in town. 
The brilliancy of this polite assemblage was some- 
times much increased hy the presence of English 
officers of the array or navy, casually present — 
visitors, perhaps, from a man-of-war anchored in 
the bay, — or of English gentlemen of high position 
in the civil service of the colonies, or young men 
of rank connected with some of the many noble 
families who were in those days interested in making 
territorial acquisitions in America. 

Washington often at this portion of his life went 
with his wife to Annapolis, during the season, to 
join in tiie fashionable festivities of the place. His 
wealth, and the high position which he occupied as 
a public man, made him an object of great interest 
and attraction in those polite circles, though it ia 
said that he was too grave, dignified and cere- 
monious in his manners ever to become a very great 
favorite with the ladies. 

PUBLIC DUT' . 

It must not be supposed, however, that during 
th^s period of his life Washington devoted his whole 
*ime to his private business and to the pleasures of 
social intercourse. He had still many public dutiea 
to perform which occupied no small portion of his 



32 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

time and attention. He was <a member of the legis- 
lature, a judge in a county court, and he was 
vestryman in two parishes lying in the immediate 
vicinity of Mount Vernon. He seems not to have 
taken a very active part in the ordinary routine of 
business in the legislature, or in the every day 
management of the affairs of the colony. But 
whenever any great question arose, or any important 
enterprise was to be undertaken, looking to substan- 
tial and permanent results, his action was energetic 
and decisive. Many examples of this kind might 
be adduced, but two or three must suflSce. 

PLAN FOR RECLAIMING THE DISMAL SWAMP. 

One plan in which for a time he was greatly 
interested was the formation of a company for drain- 
ing and bringing under cultivation the land of the 
Dismal Swamp, whicli is an immense tract of boggy 
ground on the confines of Virginia and North 
Carolina, not far from the sea. It is about ten 
miles wide and thirty miles long. Swamps of this 
kind are produced usually by subterranean springs 
rising in such abundance over a wide extent of 
territory that the natural outflow through the brooks 
and streams that issue from it is not sufficient to 
carry off the Avater. The surplus stagnates, forming 
all over the ground innumerable pools, bogs and 



LIFE AT MOUNT VEKNON. 88 

quagmires, in which aquatic and semi-aquatic plants 
grow abundantly and reptiles without number breed, 
Tn process of ages the vegetable and animal remains 
that result accumulate often to a great depth, and 
form, when at last the whole is drained and brought 
under cultivation, a soil of great depth and of 
inexhaustible fertility. 

KXPLORATION OF THE SWAMP. 

Washington was interested in a company formed 
for reclaiming this territory, and he went at the 
head of a small surveying party to explore it. 
Many portions of the ground are sufficiently hard 
to bear the weight of a horse, though in traversing 
it on horseback it is necessary to proceed with ex- 
treme caution, as there are many treacherous spots 
where an animal of such weight, once sinking in 
would become inextricably mired. 

Washington, however, was thoroughly versed in 
everything relating to forest life, and he conducted 
the exploiation in safety, camping at night upon 
such firm spots of ground as he could finrl. The 
examination which he thus m;ide, and the steps 
taken by the corapnny in consequence of it were 
the foundation of great improvements which have 
since been effected in this region, — though the 
swamp has nevei yet been reclaimed. 



84 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

EXPEDITION TO THE VALLEY OP THE OHIv). 

Another important undertaking in which Wash- 
ington engaged at this period, — one which, like bis 
exploration of the Disma;l Swamp, must have re- 
called very forcibly to his mind his old experiences 
of life in the wild woods, was an expedition which 
he made down the Ohio, with a view of selecting a 
tract of land to be allotted to his old comrades, the 
soldiers in the war with the French and Indians. 

During the war Governor Dinwiddie, the gov- 
ernor of the state, had promised by proclamation, 
as an inducement for volunteers to enlist, that two 
hundred thousand acres of land should be set apart 
on the return of peace, to be divided among the 
officers and soldiers of the army. Washington was 
ippointed one of the commissioners to settle these 
claims, and when at length, some time after the 
French had been expelled from the territory, the 
government succeeded in extinguishing the Indian 
title to a considerable portion of it, Washington set 
oflF on au expedition into the valley to select the 
tract to be set apart for this purpose. 

ADVENTURES IN THE VALLEY. 

It wae in 1770 that he set out on this expedition, 
a very few years before the breaking out of the rev- 
olutionary war. The party conisisted at the com- 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 85 

mencement of Washington himself, Dr. Craik a 
friend and neighbor who were to accompany him, 
and three negro servants, — all mounted on horse- 
back. Thej had besides a horse laden with baggage 
and provisions. 

They pursued the usual route to the valley of 
the Ohio, directing their course first for the site of 
the old Fort Du Quesne, the name uf which the 
English, since they had taken possession of the 
country, had changed to Fort Pitt, in honor of Wil- 
liam Pitt, who was at that time the prime minister 
of England. They traveled twelve days through 
the woods and mountains before they reached Fort 
Pitt. Here they found that there was beginning to 
grow up quite a little town, which has since become 
the great iron-manufacturing and iron-working city 
of Pittsburg. 

VOYAGE DOWN THE RIVER. 

The party left their horses at Fort Pitt and took 
an Indian canoe for their voyage down the river. 
Tliey also took some Indians with them to act aa 
guides and interpreters, and to assist in navigating 
the canoe. They met with a variety of adventures 
on their voyage, and in visiting the establishment 
of the fur traders, and the different Indian villages 
that they passed on theii way. They obtained theii 
8 



86 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

subsistence in a great measure from wild animals 
which they shot, such as deer that they saw from 
time to time browsing on the banks of the river, or 
coming down to the water to drink — and wild tur- 
keys, and ducks and geese that abounded in the 
region. 



The expedition was not entirely without the ex- 
citement of danger. Besides the ordinary hazards 
and exposures of traveling in wild and sometimes 
trackless woods, there was constant reason to appre- 
hend hostility from the Indians, and still more, per- 
haps, from unprincipled wliite adventurers who were 
already beginning to penetrate into the valley, and 
to take possession of the lands, and who were of 
course very inimical to any party coming with gov- 
ernmental authority to survey and lay claim to the 
territory, and to put up metes and bounds. Still, 
though the travelers had frequent occasion for alarm, 
and were obliged to be very cautious, and to act 
with great circumspection, in their treatment of the 
Indians, they met with no serious disaster. 

In the end Washington succeeded perfectly in 
accomplishing the object of his mission. He 
selected the lands to be apportioned among the sol- 
diers and marked the boundaries of the tracta 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 87 

chosen, by suitable designations. Afterward, on 
his return to Virginia, the apportionment was made 
in due form, and each officer and soldier received 
his proper share. 

DURATION OF THE PERIOD OP QUIET LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON-. 

It was in 1758 that Washington first took up his 
permanent abode at Mount Vernon. He was mar- 
ried early in 1759. The troubles with the mother 
country commenced about 1765, and the war ot 
the revolution which called Washington away from 
his home to take command of the American armies 
was formally opened in 1775. Thus the quiet 
period of his life, spent chiefly with his family, in 
peace and happiness at home, though varied by 
occasional absences on important public business ol 
a civil nature, extended through a period of about 
fifteen years. 

MOVEMENTS THAT PRECEDED THE REVOLUTION. 

Several of the last years of this period were, 
however, considerably agitated by the difficulties and 
contentions that had then begun to arise between the 
colonies imd the mother country in respect to the 
great question which was destined finally to separate 
them forever, — namely, whether the control and the 
regulation of the colonial taxation, rested with the 
colonial legislatures or with the English parliament. 



88 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

The civil part of tliis contest, — which consisted 
of the discussions, and also of the legislative meas- 
ures of coercion adopted by the government, and 
the counter measures of resistance tried by the 
colonial legislatures, and by voluntary combinations 
of the people, — continued during a period of ten 
years before the result was reached of open war, 
Washington from the beginning took decided ground 
on the side of the colonists, acting, however, in all 
the measures which he recommended, with the calm- 
ness and deliberation so characteristic of him. The 
influence which he exerted in uniting the people of 
Virginia, especially the rich and influential families, 
in the determination to assert firmly the rights of 
the colonists, and to make arrangements for vigor- 
ously maintaining them, was very powerful. 

MEETING OF THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 

At length when in 1775 the first congress of 
delegates from the several colonies was called to 
meet at Philadelphia, for the purpose of organizing 
united action, Washington was elected as one of the 
delegates from Virginia, and at the opening of the 
meeting he appeared as one of the most distinguished 
of the many very able and eminent men which 
that body contained. The high military reputation 
which he had acquired in the wars with the Frenoh 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 89 

nnd Indians, his wealth and exalted social position, 
his mature age, his tall and commanding person, 
his calm, thoughtful and cautious, but resolute and 
determined character, and his simple and unpre- 
tending, though grave and dignified bearing, com- 
bined to make him one of the most prominent men 
in the assembly. 

APPOINTMENT OF COMMANDER-IN-GHrEP. 

When at length hostilities were commenced by 
the battle of Lexington, and the whole country 
began to rise in arms, it devolved upon the Conti- 
nental Cono-ress to combine and organize the resist- 
ance which the united colonies were to make, and 
one of the first measures to be adopted was to 
appoint a commander-in-chief of the forces to be 
raised. 

Washington was at once regarded by every one 
as the most prominent candidate for this office. He 
had been from^ the beginning the leading man in 
Congress in respect to all military affairs. There 
wore, however, other candidates proposed, and some 
objection was made to the appointment of Washing- 
ton, on the ground that the chief force then existing 
consisted of New England men that iiad assembled 
in large numbers around Boston, forming an army 
there of twenty or thirty thousand men, and it 



90 LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 

seemed to bo somewhat uncertain how they would 
like to have a southern man sent to command them. 
After full consideration, however, all these objec- 
tions were overruled, and Washington was appointed 
to the office by a unanimous vote. 

FAREWELL TO MOUNT VERNON 

Washington very naturally concluded that his 
wife would hear at Mount Vernon of her husband's 
being called to a position, which though one of 
great honor, would necessnrily expose him to great 
hardships and to much danger, and would for a long 
time separate him almost entirely from her and from 
the home where they had enjoyed together so many 
years of tranquillity and happiness. In writing to 
her, to communicate the tidings, he assured her that 
he had done nothing to seek, but everything that he 
could properly do to avoid having this duty assigned 
him. But he had been led to it, he said, by circum- 
stances under divine providence wholly beyond his 
control, and he could not refuse to accept the trust 
and undertake the service to which he was thus 
called, without manifest dereliction of duty. 

He mourned the necessity of bidding farewell for 
a time to the scenes of quiet happiness which he 
had so long enjoyed at Mount Vernon with his wife 
and family, and expressed a confident hope that 



LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. 91 

Mrs. Washington would acquiesce cheerfully in the 
unavoidable separation. He charged her not to 
disquiet herself with vain regrets and unnecessary 
anxieties and fears ; but to make herself happy 
with such means of enjoyment as still surrounded 
her, and to await with fortitude and hope the return 
of their former happy days. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE REVOLUTION 

QUALITIES NECESSARY IN A COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 

One might easily imagine that the prime and 
essential qualities of a coramander-in-chief for a 
great army would be the knowledge of military 
tactics and strategy necessary to enable him to 
manoeuvre his forces properly before the enemy, 
and valor in leading them into battle. But Wash- 
ington soon found that the possession of such 
qualities as these, on which success in actual fight- 
ing depends, constituted but a small and compara- 
tively insignificant part of what was required of 
him in executing the trust which Congress had 
imposed upon him. Nearly a year was spent, after 
he entered upon the duties of his office, in the most 
arduous, incessant and harassing labors and cares, 
requiring patience, steadiness, very extended knowl- 
edge of facts, great skill in dealing with men of all 
varieties of character, and mental resources of the 
highest order, — almost before any occasion occurred 



THE REVC LUTION. 93 

for firing <a single gun in actual combat. These 
were the times and these the services that tried his 
fitness for the position most severely. 

INCIPIENT DIFFICULTIES. 

When Washington was appointed commander-in- 
shief, the only part of the country where hostilities 
had already commenced, and where the Americana 
had assembled any armed force, was in the vicinity 
of Boston. There a confused and unorganized mass 
of twenty or thirty thousand men had hastily come 
together, and to that point Washington accordingly 
at once proceeded, to assume command. He made 
his head-quarters at a large and convenient house 
in Cambridge, and here he remained for nearly 
a year — struggling incessantly with difiBculties, 
obstacles and embarrassments that would have over- 
whelmed almost any other man, and which repeat- 
edly reduced Washington himself very nearly to 
despair. 

CONFLICTS OF AUrnORITY. 

One of the greatest of these sources of embarrass- 
ment and difficulty— one, too, which he encountered 
in all its force at t.ie ver^' outset of his undertaking, 
and which continued to be an occasion of trouble 
and perplexity during the whole period of the war 



94 THE REVOLUTION. 

— was the conflict of authority and the disputes 
about precedence among the different divisions of 
troops and the officers commanding them. Wash- 
ington found in the camps about Boston bodies of 
troops from several different colonies, and officers 
placed in command by various sources of authority, 
such as colonial legislatures, committees of safety 
appointed by large towns, and volunteer associations. 
In some cases bodies of men who had hastily come 
together, on tlie call of some influential man among 
them possessed of some military knowledge, had 
elected their officers by ballot. In other cases men 
who had raised a troop took command of it as a 
matter of course without any particular authority 
other than that conferred by the acquiescence of 
their followers. 

All these men were willing to acknowledge 
Washington as commander-in-chief, he holding his 
office from the Continental Congress at Phila- 
delphia; but in assigning to them their several 
positions and their relative rank under him, endless 
jealousies arose which gave rise to innumerable 
disputes and a great deal of ill will. It required 
on the part of Washington an extraordinary degree 
of tact, judgment and discretion, and a great deal 
of very wise and skilful management, to adjust all 
these conflicting claims and prevent open outbreaka. 



THE REVOLUTION. 95 

MRS. Washington's visit. 
He was assisted very much in soothing the jeal- 
ousies among his officers, and in cultivating kind 
and friendly feelings among them, by the tact and 
courtesy of Mrs. Washington, who made a visit to 
him at his head-quarters in Cambridge during the 
fall of 1775. He had led her to hope, when he 
was appointed to the command of the armies early 
in the summer, that he should be able to return to 
Mount Vernon in the fall ; and when he found, as 
the autumn came on, that there was no probability 
that he would be released during the winter, he 
sent to invite her to come to Massachusetts and 
visit him in camp. 

MOUNT VERNON IN DANGER. 

Another reason why Washington desired that his 
wife should come to him, was because such was the 
state of things in Virginia that it was no longer 
safe for her to remain at Mount Vernon. Lord Dun- 
more, the British governor of Virginia, was begin- 
ning to adopt very decided measures to crush out the 
spirit of rebellion in that colony, and was proceed- 
ing very vigorously against all the people there 
within his reach, that he supposed to favor the cause 
of the cplonies. Mount Vernon being on the banks 
of the Potomac, was exposed to receive a visit at 



96 THE REVOLUTION, 

any time from a man-of-war, and there was thought 
to be danger that Lord Dunmore might send a vessel 
up the river to destroy the place, and also perhaps 
to capture the family with a view of holding them 
as hostages, or otherwise making use of his pos- 
session of them to restrain or control the action of 
the commander-in-chief. 

ARRIVAL OF MRS. WASHINGTON AT CAMBRIDGE. 

Mrs. Washington made the journey from Vir- 
ginia to Massachusetts in a style comporting, accord- 
ing to the ideas of those times, with the rank and 
position of her l)usband. It was considered much 
more essential then than now, — and especially so 
in Virginia — to mark the distinction of rank and 
wealth with appropriate symbols, in respect to 
dress and equipage and ceremony. These ideaa 
were derived in the first instance from England 
where they still prevail, and they acquired a 
great ascendency in those days among the aristo- 
cratic families of Virginia. Washington himself 
when he came on from Philadelphia to take com- 
mand of the army, traveled in considerable state — 
being accompanied by a military escort, and re- 
ceived with parade and military honors at all* the 
large cities through which he passed. His head- 
quarters were established at a large and handsonia 



1 /-* 


p^ — 


^ 


-.^-^Av 


. (fi 







THE E EVOLUTION. 99 

housi in Cambridge, and he maintained in hi8 mode 
of life there those observances of ceremony and 
etiquette, and formalities of parade which were de- 
manded by public sentiment in those days in the 
case of persons occupying an elevated position in 
society, and especially in those exercising an exalted 
command. 

Mrs. Washington made her journey in a private 
carriage, drawn by four horses. The horses were 
driven by black postillions dressed in an elegant 
livery of scarlet and white. She was accompanied 
by her son, and his wife — for her son had grown to 
manhood and been married, though her daughter 
had died. 

She was received on her arrival with military 
honors, and was welcomed by the soldiers of the 
army and by the people of the vicinity, with loud 
acclamations. 

INFLUENCE OP MRS. WASHINGTON IN CAMP. 

The presence of Mrs. Washington at her hus- 
band's head-quarters exerted a very important influ- 
ence in soothing the jealousies of the various offi- 
cers, and producing harmony and good feeling 
among them. This eflect was the result of the 
courtesy and kindness which marked her demeanor 
toward them, and the tact which she displayed in 



100 THE REVOLUTION. 

apportioning her hospi;ality and her attentions 
among them with some proper regard to their rela- 
tive rank and influence, and in such a manner thiit 
none were neglected. Before she came, Washington 
himself had little time to attend to such details, and 
the invitations which he gave his officers to dinner 
parties, or to other entertainments at his house, ac- 
cording to the usages of a military camp in those 
days, were not so nicely regulated as always to 
avoid giving rise to jealousies and wounded feelings 
on the part of certain sensitive persons who some- 
times imagined themselves neglected. 

The general himself could only regret that men 
of sense engaged in so great a cause could allow 
their minds to be disturbed by such petty consider- 
ations of etiquette and punctilio. But Mrs. Wash- 
ington removed the temptation from their minds by 
so arranging and regulating the mode and measure 
of her husband's hospitalities as to produce general 
Batisfaction and good feeling. 

CALLS FOB HELP AND PROTECTION FROM THE COAST, 

Washington himself, moreover, had difficulties of 
a much graver character than these to contend with. 
One of the most serious of his perplexities was 
caused by the demands which soon began to come 
to him from various points along the sea-coast, for de- 



THE REVOLUTION. 101 

tachments from the army to protect towns exposed 
to incursions from the enemy, made either for the 
purpose of obtaining forage, or supplies, or to harass 
and distress the inhabitants. As soon as the Brit- 
ish commanders found themselves surrounded in 
Boston, and hemmed in there by so large an insur- 
rectionary force that it was not prudent for them 
to attack it at once in the open field, while yet it 
cut them off from all supplies from the country, 
they began to send out small expeditions along the 
coast, in vessels of war, with orders to procure sup- 
plies, and in case of resistance to burn the towns. 
The places exposed to these attacks naturally desired 
to be protected, and urgent demands began to pour 
in upon the commander-in-chief that he should 
send detachments of troops to this place and that, 
to prevent the landing of the forces from the ves- 
sels. 

These calls Washington was compelled to refuse. 
He had scarcely force enough to hold his ground 
against the army in Boston, an 1 the places exposed 
were so numerous that to have attempted to guard 
them all would have required the dispersion of his 
whole force alonor the coast, leavinar the interior of 
the country open to the advance of the British army. 
The refusal, however, produced a great deal of dis- 
content and ill-feeling. " Why did we," said the 
9* 



102 THE REVOLUTION. 

people along the sea-board, " send our sons and 
brothers to keep guard around Boston, and leave 
our own towns and our own homes entirely, unpro- 
tected and exposed?'' 

INSUBORDINATION AND UNMANAGEBLENKSS OF THE MEN. 

In addition to these troubles the condition of the 
army itself was such as to fill the mind of the gen- 
eral with great and constantly increasing anxiety. 
At the first alarm that was sounded through the 
country, on the occasion of the battle of Lexington, 
great numbers of young and ardent men seized their 
arms and hastened to camp. But no one had any 
idea that this insurrectionary movement was to be 
the commencement of a long war. The separation 
of the colonies from the mother country was not at 
all intended, at this time, and the only aim of the 
rising, so far as any definite conception of the object 
in view was formed by the people at large, was to 
make such a demonstration of the fixed purpose of 
the people not to submit to taxation by Parliament, 
as to induce the government to abandon the policy. 

They therefore, in seizing their arms and rushing 
to the vicinity of Boston, expected only to be absent 
from their homes a few days or weeks, — and when 
they found that the case was assuming the form of 
a settled and permanent state of hostility, and tha< 



THE REVOLUTION. 103 

they were to be organized into a regular army, 
to serve for a long term, and to be subjected to 
strict discipline, they became almost wholly unman- 
ageable. 

There was among them an abundance of that 
ardor and enthusiasm that is aroused by any exci- 
ting emergency, suddenly occurring and soon to 
pass away ; and they were, also, as their conduct 
at Lexington and Bunker Hill fully evinced, cour- 
ageous and resolute in coming up promptly to any 
real work assigned them, and standing firmly to it, 
in the midst of the most appalling danger ; — but to 
be called upon as they now were to give up all that 
had been dear to them in life, to surrender their 
liberty, their independence, and everything like 
freedom of action, for no one knew how long, and 
bend their necks under the yoke of that rigid disci- 
pline and that dull routine of confinement, priva- 
tion, humiliating submission to petty authority, and 
inglorious hardship and exposure which constitutes 
the ordinary life of the soldier entering upon a long 
campaign, was a demand upon their patriotism for 
which they were wholly unprepared. 

It seemed for a time impossible to remedy the 
evils of this state of things. No gentle measures 
could ever reduce such a heterogeneous mass of 
independent, free thinking, and free speaking men 



104 THE REVOLUTION, 

to an organized and efficient army, — and any harsh 
measures would drive them altogether away. 

NO AMMUNITION. 

Another source of difficulty and danger, which 
might by the merest accident have proved fatal to 
the cause, was the almost total destitution of the 
army, if army it might be called, of ammunition 
and of military stores. Of course the first duty 
which devolved upon the general in taking command 
was to arrange the system of organization, and to 
distribute the different bodies of troops at the various 
points along the line lield by them, in order to guard, 
at every point, against a sudden attack from the ene- 
my. In making tiiese dispositions Washington had 
called for a return of the quantity of gunpowder on 
hand, and by some mistake the w hole quantity which 
the province had procured at the outset was reported 
as the amount then on hand, — when in fact almost 
the whole of it had been expended at Lexington and 
Eunker Hill. At length, however, in making a 
call for a quantity of cartridges to supply the troops 
at a particular point, Washington discovered to his 
great alarm, it might almost be said to his conster- 
nation, that there was not powder enough in his 
whole army, even for a considerable skirmish. If 
the British liad been aware of the state of thinjis 



THE REVOLUTION. 105 

ihej could have inarched out of Boston and ad- 
vanced upon anj part of his lines, and after receiv- 
ing the first fire would have found the whole colonial 
force entirely in their power. 

NECESSITY OF REMEDYING THESE EVILS WITHOUT MAKING 
THEM KNOWX. 

The worst feature of the situation in which Wash- 
ington was placed, was that it was necessary to 
contrive some way of remedying these evils without 
making them known. Of course if the British 
commander in Boston should obta'n any glimpse 
of the real state of things in the American camps, 
he would at once have made a general attack 
upon them, and Washington knew very well that 
there were plenty of persons all around him to give 
the information if once it should transpire. There 
were a great many people at this time, — many of 
them wealthy, influential, and well-informed, — that 
secretly or openly sympathized with the British 
government, and wished that the rebellion should be 
put down. The lines had not been then distinctly 
drawn, and no one knew certainly who were frienda 
or who were enemies. It was, therefore, not safe to 
reveal such a secret as the total want of ammuni- 
tion in the army to any one ; far less to communi- 
cate it to any legislative body or executive com 



106 THE KEVOLUTION. 

mittee in any one of the colonies. Washington did 
not dare even to make known the destitution and 
disorganization of his army to the Continental Con- 
gress, but was obliged to call upon them very 
urgently for means of remedying difficulties and 
averting dangers, the very existence of which he 
was obliged carefully to conceal from them. 

WASHINGTON ALMOST IN DESPAIR. 

The difficulties and embarrassments with which 
the commander-in-chief thus found hinjself sur- 
rounded became so great in the course of the 
summer, and all the efforts which he made to pro- 
vide remedies for them were so utterly baffled, that 
he was at last reduced almost to a state of despair. 
In some of his letters to a confidential friend he 
said that his anxiety caused him many sleepless 
hours at night, when all around him were in 
repose; and that if he had known the difficulties 
and trials which he should be called to encounter, 
he should have greatly preferred to have shouldered 
his musket and taken his place in the ranks; or, if 
he could have reconciled sucii a course with his 
sense of duty to his country, be should have been 
far happier to have abandoned everything, and have 
retired with his family into the wilderness and lived 



THE REVOLUTION. 107 

there, like the Indians, in a wigwam, than to have 
assumed the command. 

DISCONTENT AND DISSATISFACTION OP THE PEOPLE. 

The worst of the trials which he had to endure 
was the discontent of the people, and the many 
complaints which they made of his ineflSciency and 
inactivity, all of which he was obliged to endure in 
silence, since the causes which made any decisive 
action impossible could not be explained to tliem. 
It was an exceedingly severe trial for a man of so 
lofty a spirit as Washington, and one accustomed, 
as he had been for many years, to receive every 
possible mark of consideration and honor from his 
fellow men, to be obliged to rest quietly for many 
months under undeserved censure, and to be the 
object of general dissatisfaction and complaint from 
which he could only defend himself by revelations 
that would greatly jeopardize the cause intrusted 
to his care. It was that peculiar cast and quality 
of mind which enabled Washington in circum- 
stances like these to bear this obloquy, and keep 
his own counsel, and patiently persevere in the 
laborious, discouraging and unrequited exertion 
necessary to overcome the difficulties of his situa- 
tion, which, far more than the military skill 
required for the manoeuvring of armies, and the 



108 THE REVOLUTION. 

courage evinced in leading troops into battle, con- 
stituted the crowning glory of the great chieftain, 
and made him the successful instrument of estab- 
lishing the independence of his country. 

FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY BEFORE BOSTON. 

Washington was obliged to bear up as well as ho 
could under these dijQSculties and trials through all 
the summer and autumn of 1775, and the winter 
of 1775-6 ; but at length, in the following spring, 
the time of action and of triumph came. Active 
operations were commenced ; tlie result was that 
the British were compelled to evacuate Boston, and 
the country was everywhere filled with triumph and 
joy. The character of Washington and the wisdom 
of his measures were for the time fully vindicated, 
and the general confidence of the community in his 
eminent fitness for the supreme command was 
restored. 

THE CONTEST FOR THE POSSESSION OF NEW YORK. 

After the evacuation of Boston the scene of mili- 
tary operations was transferred to the vicinity of 
New York, and here Washington had substantially 
the same course of experience to pass through as at 
Boston. But a small portion comparatively of the 
forces that had been under his command at Boston 



THE REVOLUTION. 109 

could be transferred to the new sphere of operations, 
and still less could the organization of it be pre- 
served. A new combination was made of new 
elements, and new difficulties were to be encoun- 
tered, or rather the old difficulties presented them- 
selves in new aspects and with new force. There 
was the same embarrassment from the jealousies 
and conflicting claims of the officers coming from 
the different colonies, and from the sectional preju- 
dices and mutual animosities of the men ; the same 
conflict of authority among the various govern- 
ments represented ; the same scarcity of supplies and 
munitions of war ; and the same stern and invin- 
cible necessity of concealing deficiencies and wants, 
which, notwithstanding, could only be supplied by 
being made known. 

WASHINGTON IS OVERPOWERED BY THE DIFFICULTIES OF HIS 
SITUATION. 

The consequence was that with the utmost exer- 
tion Washington could not make a stand against 
the pressure of the vastly superior force of the 
enemy. He was driven back from one after another 
of the defences of New York, until the city and all 
the adjacent waters, with the forts and batteries 
which had been built to defend them, fell entirely 
into the enemy's hands. Even here the tide of ill 



110 THE REVOLUTION. 

fortune did not cease to flow. His army was driven 
across the Hudson into New Jersey, and tbence 
from post to post across the whole State of New 
Jersey into Pennsylvania. 

A PARTY BEGINNING TO BE FORMED AGAINST HIM. 

The consequence of this long series of disasters 
was the gradual formation of a party in the country 
disposed to question his qualifications for the high 
command that had been entrusted to him. He was 
too cautious, too slow to act, too fearful of risk. 
For such times and for such a work a man of 
greater resolution and energy was required, they 
Baid, and secret movements began to be made for 
removing him and putting a more capable man in 
his place. 

I'HE PEOPLE NOT TO BE TOO SEVERELY CENSURED FOR THEIR 
DOUBTS AND SIISGIVINGS. 

With the strong light which in later times has 
been thrown upon Washington's situation, and upon 
the difliculties which he had to encounter and the 
resources which he could employ, it is now univei- 
sally admitted that he did all that it was possible 
to do with the means at his command during the 
whole of this trying period, and we are at the 
present day strongly disposed to censure the fickle- 
ness of the public mind which was so inclined to 



THE REVOLUTION. Ill 

abandon him because he could not accomplish 
impossibilities. But the people judged then from 
the light which thej had, and that light was not 
sufficient to show whether this long series of disas- 
ters was the result of incompetence in the com- 
mander, or of causes beyond his control. They 
judged by the immediate and apparent result, 
which is, after all, the only criterion by which 
military men can ever be judged by the general 
public that is contemporary with them. 

THE CHARACTER OP WASHINGTON RETRIEVED. 

At length the time came for a change in the 
aspect of affiiirs. The opportunity arrived, and 
Washington availed himself of it by crossing the 
Delaware in the night, in boats pushed through the 
floating ice, and gaining an important victory under 
circumstances which shewed to all mankind that he 
was ready for the most daring and energetic action 
when the occasion arrived that called for it. This 
first victory was followed by a series of others, in 
the course of which the British troops were driven 
back in their turn across the whole State of New 
Jersey, and finally expelled from the State entirely. 
Washington's fame was a second time vindicated, 
and all opposition to him was again completely 
silenced. 



112 THE REVOLUTION 

CHARACTER AND MOTIVKS OP WASHINGTON'S ENEMIES. 

It was silenced but not destroyed. For, as ia 
always the case with persons holding high com- 
mand and having the disposal of many offices and 
honors, he had rivals who became enemies only 
because they were rivals — that is, they wished foi 
his place, in order that they might themselves exer- 
cise his power and dispense his patronage ; and in 
their efforts to remove him it was of course neces- 
sary for them to assume an attitude of hostility 
themselves, and do all in their power to create a 
hostile public sentiment against him. 

The party who took this antagonistic position 
against Washington contained many men of high 
position, and of much influence, both in political 
circles and in the army ; but so long as Washing- 
ton's measures were successful they Avere powerless. 
In triumphing over the public enemy he triumphed 
over them also, for they could do nothing except so 
far as they could carry public sentiment with them. 
They could only at such times withdraw from notice 
and remain silent, to bide their time. 

The general public changed their opinion of the 
commander-in-chief as his fortunes changed, but 
the e men did not change ; for the case with them 
was not that they wished to- remove him because 
they thought him incompetent, — but they wished 



THE REVOLUTION. 113 

bim to prove incompetent in order that he might be 
)-emovecl. When after a long and discouraging 
struggle lie came out triumphant in the end, the 
peojjle were pleased to find themselves mistaken, 
for it revived their hopes of the salvation of their 
country. The factious leaders, on the other hand, 
were disappointed and chagrined at his triumphs, 
for it destroyed, for the time at least, their hopes 
of possessing themselves of his place and power. 

THE THIRD DARK PERIOD OP THE REVOLUTION. 

The third dark period of the revolution through 
which Washington was called to pass — the darkest, 
indeed, of all— was the winter of 1777 — 1778. 
After the British had been driven out of the State 
( f New Jersey, and the great army of Burgoyne, 
coming doAvn from Canada, had been surrounded 
and captured by the forces under General Gates, as 
fully narrated in the preceding volume of this series, 
the seat of the war was transferred to Philadelphia 
and its environs. Washington made every possible 
exertion to defend that city ; but after a long and 
cruel struggle his troops were forced back from one 
position after another, until Philadelphia itself and 
all the neighboring waters fell into the hands of the 
enemy ; and Washington and his men were reduced 
to a condition of discouragement, destitution and 



114 THE REVOLUTION. 

Buffering that \ras all but desperate. The difficulties 
;ind danijers which were surroundincr and over- 
whelming the army seemed utterly irremediable. 
Congress had exhausted all its resources, and more 
than exhausted its credit. The men were half 
destitute of arms, of clothing, of food and of fuel, 
and there seemed no possible means of supplying 
any of these wants. Various governors were 
clamoring for troops to be sent to this point and to 
that to protect places exposed. The camp was filled 
with angry qunrrels among the officers and mutinies 
among the men. Indeed, if men ever could have 
an excuse for mutiny and desertion, the troops in 
Washington's camp might well claim to be lightly 
judged. They were encamped in wretched huts at 
Valley Forge, in mid- winter, with very little fuel, 
bad and wholly insufficient food, great numbers of 
them barefooted, and so scantily supplied with 
clothes that they were obliged to take turns in 
wearing the outside garments necessary to keep 
them from perishing when they went into the woods 
to obtain fuel for their fires. 

In a word the past campaign had been disastrous 
and there seemed to be no possible glimmer of hope 
that anything better was to come. A general feel- 
ing of gloom and despondency prevailed throughout 
the land. 



THE REVOLUTION. 115 

THE OPPOSITION REVIVED. 

Of course this state of things gave to the ene- 
mies of Washington a new opportunity. The com- 
bination against him was revived, and became more 
extended, determined, and persistent than ever. 

No doubt a great many of those who joined in 
the movement honestly believed that Washington, 
though an excellent man in all moral points of view, 
and endued with many highly meritorious qualities 
of heart and mind, did not possess the commanding 
abilities, nor the energy, decision and vigor required 
for so eventful a crisis, and they joined their influ- 
ence with that which began to press for his removal, 
from honest and worthy motives. And even those 
who combined against him with a view of displacing 
him in order to bring themselves into power, were 
probably not actuated by any real feeling of ill-will 
or hatred against him, or by any other specially 
malignant motives. We may call it selfishness if 
we choose, and a desire of personal aggrandizement, 
for no lofty or noble ends, — but it was only human 
nnturc after all in its normal and ordinary action, 
juid not any special and particularly monstrous 
♦rickedness which led them to act as tliey did. 

SUCH AN OFI'OSITION UNAVOIDABLE. 

In every case where a man is raised to a lofty 
position, and is engaged in a great work which puts 



116 THE REVOLUTION. 

him in possession of extended power, he is alwayg 
surrounded bj a class of men who consider them- 
selves next to him in the line of promotion, and 
who will be advanced in case he fails and gives way; 
and who, of course, have a direct interest in watch- 
ing hira narrowly,' and in taking advantage of any 
misstep which he may make, or of any long con- 
tinued want of success he may meet with. They 
form thus, as it were, a natural and permanent 
opposition around him. He cannot complain of this. 
It is in the nature of things that it should be so. 
Indeed, it is probably best^ all things considered, 
that it should be so. 

MEASURES RESORTED TO BY TFTE PARTY OPPOSED TO 
WASHINGTON. 

Some of the opponents of Washington at this 
time are accused of resorting to covert, underhand, 
and ignoble means to effect his downfall. They 
wrote secret letters to undermine public confidence 
in hira, and resorted to many manoeuvres, both in 
Congress and in the army, to organize, extend and 
strengthen the party against him. These, the 
friends of Washington at the time, and many his- 
torians since have designato<l as intrigues. But the 
line of dem;irc;ition which both in politics and war 
separates honest operations, conducted with a proper 



THE E EVOLUTION. 117 

Jegree of prudciTice and privacy, from unworthy 
intrigues, is not very clearly drawn. It is probable 
on the whole, that though the fiery trial of enmity 
and opposition through which Washington had to 
pass in the darkest periods of his history, was very 
painful and severe, it was not any more so than is 
inevitable, in such a world as this, for a person 
engaged in so grout a work, and one attended by 
obstacles, difficulties and discouragements so great 
and so long continued as to cause the scale to hang 
trembling in uncertainty in respect to the result, 
for so many years. 

GENERAL GATES. 

The person whom the opponents of Washington 
were inclined to bring forward as their leader, or 
rather as the commander whom they wished to put 
in his place, was General Gates. General Gates 
was really a very able officer, and an honest and 
excellent man, and he held at this time a particu- 
larly conspicuous position before the country on ac- 
count of his recent success in defeating the grand 
expedition of Burgoyne, and capturing the whole 
of his army. How far he Avas himself directly 
concerned in the efforts made for su{)planting Wash- 
ington, has been a matter of dispute. There would, 
however, be nothing derogatory to his character in 



118 THE REVOLUTION. 

tlie idea that supposing the people of the country 
to be in favor of a more active, energetic and deci- 
sive mode of conducting the war than Washington 
was pursuing, and to be disposed to bring him for- 
ward in the place of Washington to carry their 
wishes into effect, he was ready not only to acqui- 
esce in their wishes, but to do what he could do 
honorably to facilitate the change. 

He, however, made a solemn declaration at a 
subsequent period, that he had never been engaged 
in any plot or plan for the removal of Genenil 
Washington, and that he did not believe that any 
such plot existed. 

GENERAL CON-WAT. 

The person, undoubtedly, who was most active in 
these manoeuvres to supersede Washington, was Gen- 
eral Conway. He was an Irishman by birth, but 
had served in the American army from an early 
period, and had acquired a high rank in it, and 
considerable influence. He worked very much in 
the dark — mainly by private conversation, and by 
confidential correspondence with leading men both 
in the army and in Congress ; but he was exceed- 
ingly active, so much so that at a later period, when 
his secret agency in the affair was brought to light, 
the conspiracy received the name of Conway'a 



THE REVOLUTION. 119 

Cabal. Many of the letters which he wrote were 
anonymous, and there were some forged letters pur- 
porting to be written by Washington himself, and 
which were calculated greatly to injure his charac- 
ter, and which Conway is supposed by many per- 
sons to have written. 

For a time he seemed to make a good deal of pro- 
gress in the work which he had undertaken, and 
parties were formed for and against Washington, 
which resulted in producing great excitement, and 
for a time threatened very serious consequences. 
In the end, however, the friends of Washington 
carried the day. He was retained in the command 
of the army. Some of the underhand and in- 
triguing operations of Conway and his friends were 
discovered and exposed. The party was brought 
into discredit, and this dark and rery threatening 
cloud passed away. 

END OF GENERAL CONWAY. 

Many private and personal quarrels arose out 
of this affair after the public excitement had sub- 
sided. Conway himself became involved in one of 
these collisions, which led to a duel in which he was 
very seriously wounded, and for a week or two it 
W!is supposed that the wound was mortal. Believ- 
ing himself to be on his death-bed, he wrote a letter 



120 THE REVOLUTION. 

of apology to Washington, expressing his sorrow 
for what he had done. The letter was as follows : 

conway's letter. 
" Sir: — I find myself just able to hold my pen 
for a few minutes, and I take this opportunity of 
expressing my sincere grief for having done, writ- 
ten, or said anything disagreeable to your excel- 
lency. My career will soon be over; therefore, 
justice and truth prompt me to declare my last 
sentiments. You are in my eyes the great and good 
man. May you long enjoy the love, veneration and 
esteem of these states whose liberties you have 
asserted by your virtues. 

"I am, with the greatest respect, 

"Thomas Conway." 

This letter was written after the third of the 
dark periods in the history of the war had passed 
away, and Washington's policy and character was 
once more in the nscendant. The French govern- 
ment, which had secretly favored the rebellion from 
the beginning, were willing to take an open part in 
aiding it after the capture of the army of Bur- 
goyne, and the alliance began now to produce its 
eflfect. A French fleet arrived in the American 
waters, and Lafayette and other French officers 
rendered an eflScient cooperation with the forces oq 



THE REVOLUTION. 121 

land. From this time the cause of the Americans 
went on more and more successfully, until at length 
the capture of another army, that of Cornwallis, at 
Yorktown, completed the discouragement of the 
English government and people, and disposed them 
to submit to negotiations of peace. 
11 



CHAPTER V. 

NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

CHRONOLOGY. 

It is desirable that the reader, in studying the 
history of the revolutionary war, should keep in 
mind the dates of some of the principal events which 
marked the progress and termination of it. The 
war commenced by the battles of Lexington and 
Bunker Hill, in the spring and early summer of 
1775. The first great success of the American 
irms — the expulsion of the British troops from 
Boston — was achieved about a year later, in the 
spring and early summer of 1776, and on July the 
Fourth of that year independence was declared. 

The second and third great advantages gained, 
namely, the expulsion of the British from New 
Jersey, and the capture of Burgoyne's army, took 
place in 1777, — the former in the winter and the 
latter in the autumn following, of the same year. 

The treaty of alliance between the United States 
and France, through which the Americans received 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 123 

very important foreign aid, in men, in ships and in 
money, during the remainder of the war, went into 
operation in 1778. 

The contest was continued after this principally 
in the southern states, through the years 1779, 
1780 and 1781, with varying success, but chiefly 
to the advantage of the British, their forces advan- 
cing to the northward through South Carolina, 
.North Carolina and Virginia, until at last their 
principal army, under Lord Cornwallis, was sur- 
rounded at Yorktovvn, in the fall of 1781. 

This event virtually ended the active operations 
of the war. A period of negotiation ensued, which 
terminated, after many difficulties and much delay, 
in a treaty of peace, which was concluded in 1783, 
and by which the independence of the United 
Sfaites was acknowledged. 

The nature of these negotiations, and the diffi- 
culties which attended them, will form the subject 
of this chaper. 

COMPLICATED NATURE OF THE NEGOTIA TIONS. 

The work of opening and conducting the nego- 
tiations was by no means so simple an operation as 
it might seem. In the first place there could be no 
direct communication between the parties. It is 
wholly beneath the dignity of any regularly con- 



124 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

stituted government to treat with rebels, or hold 
any direct official intercourse of any kind with 
them ; and as long as the independence of America 
was not acknowledged by Great Britain, the Conti- 
nental Congress, and all the forces under their 
control, could be considered by the king and his 
government only as a band of rebels. Thus, even 
supposing that both sides were willing to make 
peace, there was this difficulty in the way, that the 
independence could not be acknowledged without 
some previous negotiation about terms and condi- 
tions, — and this negotiation could not be commenced 
until the independence was acknowledged. 

IMPLICATION OP OTHER GOVERNMENTS IN THE QUARREL. 

Besides this, the question could not be settled by 
the United States and England alone. There was 
not only the French government, which had been 
an open ally of the Americans during the latter 
portion of the war, and which was of course entitled 
to have its own interests recognized and provided 
for in settling the terms of peace, but there were 
other nations that had in one way and another been 
so far drawn into the quarrel that their interests 
were more or less involved in the settlement of it. 
The principal of these nations were Spain and Hol- 
land. 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 125 

THE CASE OF HOLLAND. 

The circumstances under which Holland, waa 
drawn into the war. were quite remarkable. Holland, 
like most of tlie other countries of Europe, was en- 
gaged in systems of policy which conflicted with those 
of England in various parts of the world, and her 
government had long secretly wished for the success 
of the American revolution, since it would tend to 
impair the power and prestige of Great Britain, but 
had not ventured openly to aid the insurgents. At 
length, however, in 1779, some secret correspon- 
dence took place between a member of the govern- 
ment of Holland, named Van Berkel and the Amer- 
ican Congress, in consequence of which a commis- 
sioner was appointed to proceed to Holland with a 
view of endeavoring to negotiate a loan there for 
the purpose of raising funds, and also of obtaining 
from the Dutch government a recognition of Amer- 
ican independence. 

HENBY LAURENS. 

The commissioner appointed was Henry Laurens, 
a South Carolinian of wealth and distinction, who 
had taken a prominent part in the councils of the 
leaders of the revolution in America, and who had 
been for two years a member of the Continental 
Congress. 

11* 



126 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

CAPTURE OP LAURENS. 

Mr. Laurens sailed from this country in 1779 
but the vessel in which he took passage was inter- 
cepted oflf Newfoundland, by a British frigate, and 
captured. When Laurens saw that the frigate was 
close upon them, and that it was impossible to 
escape, he went to his cabin and brought up a pack- 
age containing all his papers and threw it overboard. 

This movement was however observed on board 
the frigate, a boat was let down and the papers re- 
covered. 

Laurens himself was immediately seized, and 
closely confined on board the ship. He was con- 
veyed to London and imprisoned in the Tower, where 
he was quite harshly treated, being considered as a 
convicted traitor and rebel. He was not allowed 
the use of pen and ink, and was not permitted to 
hold intercourse with any friends in England who 
might be disposed to visit him. 

HK REMAINS FAITHFUL AND FIRM. 

The harshness, however, with which he was 
treated is not to be attributed to a spirit of resient- 
raent, far less to wanton cruelty on the part of the 
British Government, but rather to a motive of 
policy. Their design was to intimidate and dis- 
courage their prisonw, in the hope of inducing 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 121 

him in the end to abandon the American cause and 
aid the ministry, bj his influence in America, in 
bringing the people to submission. lie was twice 
approached with offers of liberty and large rewards 
if he would give up the contest. But he rejected 
these offers at once, and in the most decided manner. 

THE CAPTURE OF TUB PAPERS LEADS TO WAR BETWEEN 
ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 

The package of papers which had been recovered 
from the sea proved, on examination in London, to 
contain the correspondence between Van Berkel and 
the American government, which showed very con- 
clusively that the Dutch government was secretly 
aiding the rebellion. The English ministers were 
made very indignant by this discovery. They 
immediately demanded that the Dutch government 
should disavow the action of Van Berkel and 
dismiss him from office. This the government 
refused to do, and the English government then 
I'eclared war against Holland. 

VARIOUS COMPLICATIONS. 

The material interests of France and Spain were 
involved in the settlement of the question between 
England and America on account of Louisiana and 
Florida, between which and the tenitory which had 
belonged to Great Britain boundaries were to be 



128 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

fixed. In addition to these complications there 
were several perplexing questions in respect to the 
boundary line between the United States and 
Canada; for Canada, not having joined in the 
revolt, could not be included in the claim for inde- 
pendence. 

There was, moreover, the great question of the 
fisheries on the Banks of Newfoundland, which 
had long been a great source of wealth to the 
English people — employing as they did great num- 
bers of vessels and men, and aflfording vast profits 
to all concerned in them. 

PARTY CONFLICTS IN CONGRESS IN RESPECT TO THE APPOINT- 
MENT OF COMMISSIONERS. 

The sending of commissioners to the difierent 
courts of Europe was a measure resorted to many 
years before the conclusion of the war, and the 
appointment of the commissioners led to serious 
and protracted conflicts in Congress. Besides tiie 
personal rivalries and contentions resulting from 
the ambition of individuals, the interests of the 
different sections of the country were not the same. 
Tlie southern States felt naturally the greatest con- 
cern in i-espect to the understanding to be secured 
with France and Spain, on account of the boundary 
between them and the provinces of Louisiana and 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 129 

Florida, and the navigation of the Mississippi 
involved in that question, for the mouth of that 
river was in French territory. The northern States, 
on the other hand, were more interested in the 
Canadian boundary, and the question of the fisheries 
of Newfoundland, in which the people of New 
England only were engaged. These questions and 
difficulties led to many very earnest contests among 
the political leaders, both in Congress and through- 
out the countiy at large, and could only be settled 
at last by a sort of tacit understanding that the 
appointments should be fairly proportioned among 
the different sections that were differently interested 
in the results. 

THE COMMISSIONERS. 

The principal persons who were engaged in the 
final negotiation of the treaty were Laurens, Adams. 
Franklin and Jay. Laurens, after being confined 
in the Tower of London for more than a year, was 
liberated at last by the English government when 
they found that negotiations for peace must be com- 
menced, and he had been sent to Paris to assist in 
the conduct of them. Franklin had been for some 
time in Paris, and Adams in Holland, while Jay 
had been engaged in negotiations in Spain, In 
due time, however, when the British government 



130 NLGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

had finally found themselves compelled to open 
negotiations, these commissioners all assembled at 
Paris, and there the convention was finally con- 
cluded. 

Of these commissioners Laurens might be sup- 
posed to reflect the views and opinions of the 
southern States, Adams those of New England, and 
Jay and Franklin those of New York and Phila- 
delphia. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

Of all these men Benjamin Franklin was the 
most distinguished among the upper classes of 
society on the continent of Europe, on account of 
his reputation as a philosopher. He had created a 
great sensation by some of his scientific discoveries, 
especially by his grand experiment of the electrical 
kite, by which he demonstrated the identity of 
origin in the electrical phenomena of the lecture- 
room and the thunder and lightning of the skies. 

This identity had been suspected, but had not 
been prove<i until at length Franklin, in 1752, from 
a little tool-house in his garden near Philadelphia, 
sent up a kite into a thunder cloud, and by means 
of a metallic thread in the string drew down the 
electricity from it, and produced the same effects 
with it, as the philosophers had been accustomed to 



-^...<>x 



/^mt^ 



i«/ \20 



:^ 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 183 

produce with the electricity developed by their 
machines. 

The fame of this experiment, joined to certain 
striking personal cliaracteristics which marked the 
conduct and social intercourse of Franklin, mad 
him very conspicuous at the time among the com- 
missioners, though in respect to actual negotiation 
of the treaty history assigns the most prominent 
part to Jay. 

COMPLICATIONS AND DIFFICULTIES ON THE BRITISH SIDE. 

The complications and difficulties attendant on 
the negotiation of the treaty were not altogether 
confined to the Americans. There was a long strug- 
gle, accompanied by violent dissensions and disputes, 
in the British parliament, before a majority was 
gained in favor of abandoning the war. Then when 
parliament had been brought over, the king was 
extremely reluctant to acknowledge himself con- 
quered by a rebellion. And when at length he 
finally yielded, a great many technical embarrass- 
ments and questions of etiquette and ceremony in- 
tervened, arising from the difficulty of opening 
negotiations for acknowledging the independence 
of a power, without virtually recognizing its in- 
dependence by the very act of opening the nego« 
tiations. 



134 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

THE QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT. 

The only mode by which a change on the part 
of the British government in any great system of 
policy can usually be effected is by the party in 
parliament, opposed to that policy, gradually increas- 
ing until it becomes a majority. When this occurs 
the ministry must resign, and a new ministry, com- 
posed of men in favor of the new measures, must 
be appointed in their places, for it is impossible for 
the government to be carried on without the con- 
currence of the house of commons. 

Consequently, however strongly the king himself 
may be opposed to a change, he can but submit 
when the majority of the house of commons has 
come to a decision in favor of it. 

There bad been a strong party in the house of 
commons and in the country, opposed to the war 
from the beginning, and this party was gradually 
increased as the war went on, and the different Eu- 
ropean nations began to be drawn into it, or rather 
to avail themselves of the opportunity offered by it 
to advance their own claims and interests as against 
England, in various parts of the world. Of course 
every defeat of the British arms in America gave 
a great impulse to the opposition in parliament, and 
tended greatly to discourage the friends of the party 
in power. 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 135 



EFFECT OF THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS. 

The surrender of Cornwallis and his army took 
place about the middle of October, 1781, and the 
news of the event reached England toward the end 
of November, just before the opening of parliament. 
It produced a great effect. A resolution was soon 
brought forward, declaring 

" That any further attempt to reduce the Ameri- 
cans by force would be ineffectual and injurious." 

After an exciting debate the vote was taken. 
The ministry made great exertions to rally all their 
friends, and they succeeded in defeating the pro- 
posed resolution, though by a majority very much 
reduced from that of former votes on the question. 

This was near the middle of December. The 
Christmas holidays came on soon afterward, when 
parliament is always adjourned. During the inter- 
val it was evident that public opinion Avas moving 
rapidly in the direction of opposition to the war, 
and when parliament assembled, after the recess, 
the question was brought up again, in the form of 
a proposed address to the king, requesting his 
majesty to put a stop to the war. 

Notwithstanding all the influence which the min- 
istry could bring to bear against this proposal, it 
was lost by only one vote. 



136 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

A few days afterward it was brought forward 
again and curried. 

The ministry were of course compelled to resign, 
that their places might be supplied by a new 
ministry opposed to the further prosecution of the 
war. 

AN ALTERNATIVE STILL PRESENTED. 

This did not, however, entirely settle the ques- 
tion of independence ; for of those who were 
opposed to the farther continuance of the war a 
considerable number still believed that by giving up 
the original point in dispute — that is, the claim of 
the Americans that their own legislatures should 
have the exclusive right to levy taxes upon them — 
just as the English legislature — that is, the parlia- 
ment — had the exclusive right to levy taxes upon 
the English people — and also by making other con- 
cessions, if desired, by which the colonies should 
hold practically the entire control of their local 
government — they might be induced to waive their 
demand for a formal and absolute separation from 
the mother country. It would of course greatly 
diminish the humiliation of England in giving up 
the contest if some semblance of union between the 
crown and the revolted provinces could be restored 
and maintained. 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 137 

ATTEMPT TO SEPARATE AMERICA FROM FBiNOE. 

There was another point, which was likewise a 
kind of point of honor, or rather a question of 
pride, with the English statesmen in this emer- 
gency. The English government was very indig- 
nant against France for having interfered in a 
quarrel between the King of England and his own 
subjects, and for having aided and abetted them in 
their rebellion, especially as by so doing she had 
been in a great measure the means of enabling the 
traitors to accomplish their ends. And now, by 
consenting that France should be joined to America 
in the treaty of peace, they seemed to be in some 
measure recognizing and acknowledging, if not 
actually sanctioning, the alliance and union between 
them. 

Besides this, it was in itself a very humiliating 
thing for a great sovereign to be compelled openly 
to allow a rival and hostile power to come in as a 
party to be consulted and satisfied, in the settle- 
ment of a quarrel between himself and his own 
subjects. 

The English statesmen were accordingly very 
desirous of securing two points in the coming 
negotiations ; first, to separate France entirely from 
America in the conduct of them, and secondly so 
to settle the quarrel as to retain some nominal con- 



138 NEaOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

nection still between the colonies and the mothei 
country. 

ATTEMPT TO NEGOTIATE WITH WASHINGTON AND CONGRESS. 

With a view perhaps of separating the American 
from the French government in the negotiations, 
and dealing only with the former, instructions were 
sent out to the general-in-chief of the British armies 
in America to open a communication on the subject 
of peace with Washington and with the Congress. 
Congress replied, however, that they had clothed 
the commissioners at Paris with full powers to act 
for the American government in the negotiations 
to be opened, and declined taking any action on the 
subject in any other way. 

THE THREE ESSENTIALS. 

The British government finally sent a com- 
missioner to Paris with powers to arrange with the 
American commissioners there the terms and con- 
ditions of a treaty. The name of the British agent 
was Oswald. He was not a member of the govern- 
ment, but a merchant of London, appointed by the 
ministry especially for this service. He at once 
proceeded to Paris in order to perform his duty. 
This was in the summer of 1782. 

His instructions were to ascertain whether there 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 139 

was any possibility of arranging the settlement in 
such a way as still to preserve some connection 
between the colonies and the mother country ; but 
he soon found that this was entirely out of the 
question. The commissioners declared that there 
were three essential conditions that must be agreed 
to before they would enter into any negotiations at 
all. Those three points were absolute independence, 
a satisfactory boundary, and a right to participation 
in the fisheries. 

Finding the commissioners firm on these points, 
Oswald returned to London to report and to receive 
fresh instructions. 

TECHNICALITIES AND POINTS OF ETIQUETTE. 

After receiving these instructions Oswald went 
back again to Paris to renew the discussions. He 
arrived there early in September. On meeting 
the commissioners he produced his credentials in 
order that the commissioners might see that he 
was duly authorized to act. They observed that 
the language of the document was that he was 
empowered " to conclude a peace with certain 
colonies y 

Jay objected to this phraseology. The parties 
with whom the negotiation was to be made were 
not colonies, he urged, but independent statea, 



140 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

having declared themselves such in 1776, six years 
before, and having maintained that declaration 
during the whole intervening period. For them to 
open negotiations as colonies, he contended, would 
1)6 a virtual abandonment of the whole ground for 
which the battle had been fought, and that after the 
victory had been won. 

Franklin, who was a man of plain practical 
common sense, — accustomed to look at the substance 
rather than the form in all transactions in which he 
was engaged, — while he admitted the force of this 
objection, was not inclined to insist upon it. He 
argued that though the British government might 
still use the word colonies, the very act of treating 
with them was in itself a recojinition of their inde- 
pendence as a power ; and that the objection to the 
technical informality might be waived. But Jay 
was a lawyer, and he knew very well how important 
in certain contingencies the legal effect of tho 
language of the document might become. 

He argued, furthermore, that the object of the 
treaty was not to create the independence of the 
American states nor even to procure an acknowl- 
edgment of it. The independence was a fact. The 
acknowledgment of that fact by the British govern- 
ment was to be the act of tiiat government alone. 
No treaty was required for that. Indeed no treaty 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 141 

could be made until that act had been performed. 
Whether the British Government would or would 
not recognize the fact of American independence 
was a preliminary question for the government 
alone to consider. If they decided that they could 
not recognize it, then no negotiations could be 
opened ; for no government can negotiate or make 
treaties except with an acknowledged power. If, 
on the other hand, they decided that they did recog- 
nize the American government as an independent 
power, then the commissioners were ready to enter 
upon the negotiation of a treaty to define the rela- 
tions which the two powers were to sustain to each 
other in their future intercourse ; but it was obvi- 
ously required, as a preliminary step, that the 
American government should be acknowledged as 
an independent power, capable of making such a 
contract, before the negotiation of it could be com- 
menced. 

These views prevailed and Oswald returned to 
London to obtain a change in the phraseology and 
tenor of his instructions. 

TRUE CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH INTERVENTION. 

Although the Americans, as was very natural 
and very proper, felt a certain sense of obligation 
to their allies for the aid which they had rendered 



142 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

them in the war, it must not be supposed that the 
French were actuated in rendering this assistance, 
by any generous principle of justice, in behalf of 
the weak contending for their rights against the 
strong, still less from any sentiment of friendship 
or special good will for the American people. 
There is no such thing as generosity or friendship 
as a principle of action among nations, — and no 
proper foundation for gratitude, such as is called 
for by disinterested kindness, or by favors bestowed 
without expectation of return. In all its dealings 
with the external world, every nation, as a nation, 
acts solely with a view to its own interests. Gov- 
ernments in fact have very little authority to act 
otherwise than with a single view to the advantage 
of their own people. 

The aid which the French government gave to 
the Americans in the war of the revolution formed 
no exception to this general rule Individuals 
may have been influenced by generous and self- 
sacrificing motives, but the government was led' to 
the course it pursued solely by the desire to divide 
and diminish the power of its ancient and eternal 
rival and enemy, Great Britain. 

They joined, accordingly, with the American 
government in the war, because by so doing they 
could the better accomplish certain objects of their 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 143 

own. The Americans were thus under just the 
same obligation to the French for aiding them to 
establish their independence that the French were to 
the Americans for the assistance that the revolution 
afforded them in humbling and weakening their 
ancient enemy. 

INTERFERENCE OP FRENCH AND AMERICAN INTERESTS IN THE 
QUESTION OF PEACE. 

While the war continued the French and the 
Americans acted in harmony, for their interests and 
ends were the same. Both wished to inflict as much 
injury as possible upon the British military power, 
and to make the separation of the colonies from the 
mother country complete and perpetual. But when 
the terms and conditions of peace came to be dis- 
cussed, the interests of the two governments were 
found to be very diverse. Each naturally wished 
to gain advantages for itself, and in order to accom- 
plish this end endeavored to induce the other to be 
satisfied with little, in order that whatever of a 
spirit of concession the English government were 
disposed to evince, might be made available in 
obtaining for its own side the more. 

THE WESTERN BOUNDARY. 

There was a great deal of discussion during these 
negotiations in respect to the boundaries of the ter- 



144 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

ritory to be held by the United States. The 
country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi 
was then almost entirely uninhabited by white men, 
and the French and Spaniards who held large 
tracts of country south of the United States and 
west of the Mississippi, claimed that the country 
east of the river, as far as to the mountains should 
not be included. To this, however, the commis- 
sioners would not consent. They insisted on the 
Mississippi as the western boundary. 

THE FISHERIES. 

Another question related to the right of the 
Americans to a participation in the Newfoundland 
fisheries. The French minister endeavored to per- 
suade the commissioners to give up this claim, and 
to be content with the fisheries on the coast. But 
to this the commissioners would by no means con- 
sent. 

The Newfoundland fisheries were of great im- 
portance to the New England people, and especially 
to the people of Massachusetts. But besides this 
there was a national object to be obtained in retain- 
ing this branch of industry, and that was the 
securing for the country a large class of efficient 
seamen to be ready for the naval service iu oaaw of 
futiu'e wars. 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 145 

DIPLOMACY. 

In diplomacy as in war, a great number of 
manoeuvres and modes of management are practiced 
which are considered right and proper enough by 
the party that practices them, but which, when 
brought to light, are thought treacherous and dis- 
honorable by the other party. The operation which 
those who are to gain by it consider only as adroit 
management, or ingenious stratagem, those who are 
to lose denounce as perfidy and fraud. There seema 
to have been a good deal of this kind of work 
among the various parties concerned in this compli- 
cated negotiation. There was secret correspondence 
carried on, and attempts made by each, party to 
foment divisions and jealousies between the other 
two, and letters intercepted and shown to parties 
from whom they were intended to be concealed, and 
many other manoeuvres of quite a questionable 
character. It is very natural for us, as Americans, 
to say that there was nothing of this kind in the 
conduct of our representatives in this transaction, 
and probably the French and the English would say 
the same in respect to theirs. 

CLAIMS OF COMPENSATION FOR THE AMERICAN LOYALISTS. 

The diflBculties of the negotiation did not arise 
ftltogetber from the claims made by the French and 
13 



14G NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

the Americans. The English on their part demanded 
some indemnification for the losses which the loyal- 
ists of New York, Boston and other large cities 
had sustained in consequence of the part they took 
against the colonies in the revolution. Some of 
these persons had had their property confiscated. 
Others had been obliged to fly precipitately from 
their homes, and had suffered great loss and damage. 
Now most of the commissioners had taken a very 
active part in the measures which the different 
states had adopted against these loyalists during the 
whole period of the war, and were of course now 
extremely unwilling to engage that anything like 
restitution should be made to them for the damage 
they had suffered for having taken part against their 
countrymen. After much debate and much urgent 
insisting on both sides, the American commissioners 
finally agreed that there should be no farther pro- 
ceedings taken against such of the loyalists as re- 
mained in the country, and that the general gov- 
ernment should moreover recommend to the several 
states to restore the property which had already 
been confiscated, though they frankly admitted that 
Congress had no power to compel them to comply 
with the recommendation, nor did the commissioners 
til ink that there was much probability that they 
would comply with it of their own accord. 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 147 

TERMS OP THE TREATY FINALLY AGREED UPON. 

The princ'pal points of the treaty, as it was 
finally arranged, were, that the independence of the 
thirteen states was formally and fully acknowledged, 
with the line of the St. Lawrence and the lakes for 
the Northern boundary, and the river Mississippi 
for the Western boundary, of the territory. The 
Americans were to have the free navigation of the 
Mississippi River, but the St. Lawrence was to be 
under the exclusive control of the English. Both 
nations were to have free access to the Newfound- 
land fishing ground. 

' LONG PROTRACTION OP THE NEGOTIATIONS. 

The war virtually ceased when the negotiations 
were commenced, but it was a long time before the 
treaty was formally signed and ratified and the 
British troops actually withdrawn from the country. 
It was in the spring of 1782 that parliament came 
to the decision to abandon the war. In the course 
of the summer of that year the negotiations were 
commenced in Paris. In November the prelim- 
inaries were agreed upon and signed, but the dis- 
cussions that arose in drawing up the formal treaty 
occupied nearly a year longer, so that it was not 
until September, 1783, that the treaty was actually 
and finally signed. 



148 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 

PINAL WTTHDUAWAL OF THE BRITISH ARMY. 

The final evaxjuation of the country by the Brit- 
ish troops took place a month later, from New York. 
The diflferent portions of the army had previously 
been gradually concentrated at that point, and when 
the time arrived for their departure, the British 
general, Sir Guy Carleton, gave notice of their 
intended embarkation to General Washington, in 
order that he might be ready to take possession of 
the several posts in the vicinity of the city, and of 
the city itself, in succession, as the British troopa 
should be withdrawn. 

A conference was then held in the vicinity of the 
city between Sir Guy Carleton, General Washing- 
ton, and Governor Clinton, the governor of New 
York, to arrange together the details of the evac- 
uation. The twenty-fifth of November was fixed 
upon as the day. 

The embarkation commenced at the appointed 
time, and as fast as the troops were withdrawn from 
the different posts, the forces of the Americans 
entered, took possession, and raised the national flag. 
When at last the city itself was left free, the Amer- 
icans entered it, in a grand procession. General 
Washington and Governor Clinton led the way, 
escorted by a troop of horsemen. They were fol- 
lowed by a large number of other oflficers of rank 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 149 

both civil and military, and by a long column of 
citizens on horseback and on foot. 

In the evening the whole city was given up to 
festivities, military salutes, fireworks, illuminations 
and general rejoicings. The last British soldier 
had gone and the country was at peace. 

The anniversary of the evacuation continued to 
be celebrated by the inhabitants of New York for 
many years. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY 

RESIGNATION OF WASHINGTON. 

As soon as the great object for which war had 
been organized and the armies raised — namely, the 
independence of the country — had been secured, 
Washington resigned his commission, thus divesting 
himself of the great military power which had been 
placed in his hands, and quietly retii'ing to private 
life. His doing this so promptly has justly been 
considered by mankind as an act which separates 
him by a marked line of dis-tinction from all other 
heroes and conquerors that had in previous times, 
and in various ages of the world, succeeded in 
placing themselves at the head of the military 
power in their respective countries. 

He alone of all the great commanders that have 
figured conspicuously in this world's history did 
not assume, when the battle was fought and the 
victory M'on, that he himself was the only man of 
all the millions interested who was capable of safely 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 151 

and successfully wielding the power which his mili- 
tary work had created. Julius Caesar, Alexander, 
Charlemagne, the Napoleons — each, having estab- 
lished an empire, deemed it essential to secure the 
sovereignty of it to themselves and their descend- 
ants. Washington, as soon as his work of laying 
the foundation was done, and the existence and 
independence of the nation was secured, resigned 
his power into the hands of those who had conferred 
it, and retired. 

THE NATURE OF THE GREATNESS OF WASHINGTON. 

Washington was, as it were, the first of a new 
class of great men, such as the world before his day 
had scarcely known, — that is. of men who acquire 
renown not by imposing their ideas and enforcing 
their will upon their countrymen, but by embodying 
and carrying into effect the ideas and determina- 
tions which their countrymen had previously formed. 
Washington did not originate the idea of the inde- 
pendence of America, as perhaps Julius Ctesar did 
that of the universal empire which he founded. 
The conception of American independence and 
nationality was gradually developed in the public 
opinion of a widely extended, intelligent and well 
informed community. Washington was called upon 
to give effect to the will of this cornmunitv, and for 



152 THE DISBANDINQ OF THE ARMY. 

this purpose v;ist powers were put into his handa 
When the work was accomplished he resigned the 
power, and returned to his retirement, leaving to 
that great community itself the entire responsibility 
of future action. 

ASSUMPTIONS OP OTHER FOU^rr)ERS OF EMPIRE 

Other men who have been the means of founding 
empires have never pretended to be guided by the 
intelligence of any community, either in respect to 
the end to be attained or to the means of attaining 
it, but only to use its force as a means of attaining 
their own ends. They claim — or one of them, at 
least, claims for them — that when such men arise, 
and assume command over their fellow men, the 
nations whom they have succeeded in subjecting 
have only to listen to their voice and obey. Wash- 
ington made no such claim, and assumed no such 
power. It was the voice of his country that was 
uttered, and he himself heard and obeyed. 

THE SOLDIERS. 

The dismission of the soldiers from the service 
was not so easily to be arranged, on account of 
diflSculties arising from their arrears of pay, and 
other claims which they made against the govern- 
ment, and the unwillingness of the men to lay down 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 155 

their arms until tlieir rights were secured to them. 
Several times during the war very serious complica- 
tions had arisen from the inability of the govern- 
ment to fulfil its obligations to the men in respect 
to clothing, provisions and pay. Mutinies leading 
to serious outbreaks several times occurred, and on 
one occasion a whole encampment of thirteen hun- 
dred men broke into open revolt, and after deposing 
the commissioned officers put the sergeants in their 
places, and set out on their march to Philadelphia, 
there to make a personal demand upon Congress for 
the redress of their grievances. 

THE REVOLT IN 1781. 

This occurrence took place in 1781, the year 
before the opening of negotiations for peace, and 
about six months before the capture of Cornwallis. 
The troops that were concerned in the revolt were 
those of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Th-ey 
were encamped in winter quarters in Morristown, 
in the middle of New Jersey. Washington was at 
that time on the Hudson, a little above New York, 
to protect the country there, and the river, from 
the incursions of the British, who were in strong 
force in the city. In a word, it was during one 
of the most criticail periods of the war that this 
difficulty occurred. 



154 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

CAUSES OF THE REVOLT. 

In respect to the questions at issue between the 
soldiers and the government, the mutineers, it would 
seem, were altogether in the right The hardships, 
privations and trials which they endured were 
pitiable in the extreme. Their clothes were worn 
to rags ; their shoes were well nigh gone ; they 
were wholly unprovided with blankets or outside 
garments ; and they had very little fuel for fires. 
The only means of protection from the cold that they 
could command was the shelter of wretched huts, 
which they built themselves, in cold and hunger. 
They had had no pay for months. In a word, they 
were reduced to the lowest extreme of destitution 
and misery that men could endure and live. 

The officers did all in their power to sustain and 
encourage them, by sharing their exposures and 
fatigues, and they succeeded by these means, and 
by many strict precautions, in preventing an out- 
break for some time. 

The government declared that they had made, and 
were still making, every possible exertion to remedy 
these evils, but it was utterly out of their power to 
do it at once, though they made continual promises 
of relief soon to come. Their means, both of money 
and of credit were entirely exhausted, and Congresa 
knew not what to do to procure future supplies. 



THE DISBANDING OP THE ARMY. 155 

And yet the means and resources of the country 
were ample. For, during all this time, while the 
Boldiers in camp were enduring these miseries, the 
cities, the large towns, and wide regions of fertile 
country were filled with hundreds of thousands of 
families, who, though suffering many inconveniences 
from the war, were still living at their homes in 
comfort and plenty, many of them enjoying all the 
refinements and pleasures of luxury and wealth. 
They remained at their homes and firesides uncon- 
cerned, while these poor outcasts put into the field 
to fight for their protection, were left to sink 
through all the successive stages of want and misery 
into utter despair. 

WHY CONGRESS COULD NOT ACT EFFECTUALLY. 

The reason why Congress was powerless to re- 
dress this wrong, was because the period when the 
difficulty occurred was during the time of the con- 
federation, when the general government could only 
decide what should be done, while they were wholly 
dependent upon the states for the meana to do it. 
This difiiculty was afterward remedied, as will be 
Been in a subsequent cliaj)ter, when the unio7i was 
formed, under which the general government had 
not only authority to determine what should be 
done, but was clothed with power to carry its decrees 



IGii THE DISBANDIXG OF THE ARMY. 

nto immediate execution by its own direct agency. 
Under the confederation, however, Congress could 
only decide, for example, that so much money or 
50 many men should be raised, and then apportion- 
ing the amount among the several states, call upon 
each one to take measures for providing its share. 
How this operated will be more fully shown here- 
after. It is sufficient here to say that it led to end- 
less difficulties, delays and failures. Thus the men 
suffered because the concurrent action of fourteen 
independent powers was necessary for their relief, 
one to decide what was to be done, and the thirteen 
otliers to do it, by separate action, — one by one — at 
times and in ways as should by them be found to 
be convenient and agreeable. 

THE CRISIS. 

At length things were brought to a crisis in the 
encampment of the Pennsylvania troops above re- 
ferred to, by a practical question which arose 
between the officers and many of the men, in which 
the officers felt bound to insist upon what the men 
considered an outrageous injustice. It seems that 
a large portion of the men had enlisted '• for three 
years or during the war." It was not supposed at 
the time that the war would be protracted for more 
than three years, and the object of putting the con- 



THE DISBANDING OP THE ARMY. 157 

tract in that form was to enable the government to 
disband the troops, and so terminate their pay, at 
any time when the war should end. 

The three years had now expired with many of 
the men, and they, finding their privations and 
sufferings no longer endurable demanded their dis- 
charge. But the officers claimed that they were 
enlisted for the wai\ wliatever its duration might 
be, and refused to grant any of them a discharge. 

On this a large body of Pennsylvania troops 
made a common cause, and openly revolted. An 
actual conflict ensued, in which one man was killed 
and many wounded. The malcontents were how- 
ever victorious, and as has already been said, they 
set out in a body on a march to Philadelphia to 
demand of Congress, in session there, at least a 
recognition of what they deemed their rights, and 
some redress for their intolerable grievances. 

This was a terrible irruption upon the country 
intervening — a body of thirteen hundred armed 
men, breaking loose from the authority of their 
commanders, and from the discipline of the camp, 
iind commencing a march of a hundred miles through 
a defenceless country, and all in a state of excite- 
ment and exasperation, un ler a sense of what they 
deemed outrageous wrong. 



158 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

DANGER AND DIFFICULTY OF THE SITUATION. 

The officer in command of the revolted troopS; 
or rather the one who had been in command of 
them — General Wayne —immediately despatched 
couriers in every direction to give the alarm. He 
sent one to General Washington at his headquarters, 
on the Hudson River, near New York, to inform 
him of what had occurred, another to Philadelphia 
to give notice to Congress, and others to all the 
intervening country, with orders to spread the alarm 
everywhere by ringing the bells and building signal 
fires on all the heights, for the purpose of calling 
out the militia. This was done, partly in the hope 
of assembling a sufficient force to intercept the 
progress of the mutineers, and, if this should be 
impossible, to enable the country through which 
they should pass, to protect themselves from depre- 
dation and plunder. And in order to diminish as 
much as possible the danger of violence, and to re- 
move from the men the temptation and excuse that 
hunger would jifford them. General Wayne sent on 
a supply of provisions after them, sufficient for 
their wants on the way. 

Washington's danger. 
Washington's first impulse was to set off himself 
immediately in pursuit of the revolted troops, in 



4 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 159 

hopes of overtaking them, nnd by his personal 
influence persuading them to return to their duty. 
But his own situation and th;»t of the army 
under his immediate command were such that it 
was not safe to do this. There was a degree of 
suffering and discontent among these troops scarcely 
less than that of tiie body which had revolted. If 
he were to leave them a revolt might break out 
among them also. They were, moreover, very near 
the British lines ; and the British officers, on learn- 
ing the true state of the case, might make such 
offers to the men as to induce them to give up the 
cause of their country entirely, and go over in a 
body to the enemy, 

ENDEAVOR OF THE BRITISH TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE 
DIFFICULTY. 

The British general was, in fact, well apprised 
of what was taking place ; and as soon as he was 
informed of the mutiny of the soldiers, and of their 
having commenced their march toward Piiiladelphia. 
he sent off at once several messengers to make their 
way through the country to the camp of the revolted 
troops, to offer them pardon, protection and ample 
pay if they would return to their allegiance to the 
king, and join his army. 

At the same time he embarked with all haste, in 



160 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

the midst of a pouring rain, a number of pieces of 
artillery and a considerable body of men, with 
vrders to the detachment to proceed along the 
Jersey shore, and to be ready to meet and receive 
the troops, if the messengers should succeed ili per- 
suading them to accept his offers, and to lead 
them down to the coast, where he would have trans- 
ports ready to convey them to New York. 

MEASURES ADOPTED BY WASHINGTON. 

Immediately on receiving intelligence of the 
mutiny, and finding that it would not be safe for 
him to go personally to the scene, Washington sent 
orders to General Wayne to follow the men and 
endeavor to open friendly communication with them, 
but not to attempt any coercion. He was not even 
to attempt to surround them, or to intercept their 
march. If they found that they were in danger of 
being overpowered and captured, there would be 
great fear of their deserting in a body to the British. 
At any rate, they could not by any such course be 
ever made good soldiers again for the American 
cause. 

The river Delaware, which forms the boundary 
between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and which 
the mutineers would have to cross as soon as they 
reached the frontier of the State, would have 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 161 

Rfforded General Wajne a great facility in inter- 
cepting and capturing the mutineers if that had 
been the true policy to be pursued. But Washing- 
ton's orders were that he should not attempt to 
prevent their crossing the river, but rather to facili- 
tate their doing so, in order to remove them as far 
as possible from any aid that the British general 
might send to them. Washington at the same time 
sent communications to all the neiijhborino: States — 
through whose remissness in carrying into effect the 
measures ordained by Congress this emergency had 
arisen — informing them of what had occurred and 
of the imminence of the danger which threatened 
and urginor the legislative and executive authorities 
to comply with the requisitions of Congress without 
any further delay. 

THE MUTINEERS COME TO A STAND AT PRINCETON. 

The mutineers, however, did not seem disposed 
to hasten their march. On the contrary, after 
having proceeded to Princeton, a distance of about 
fifty miles from Morristown, and still fifteen or 
twenty from the river, they came to a halt and 
encamped. Here negotiations were commenced, 
and after considerable delay and much discussion 
terms were agreed upon by which the difiiculty 
was settled. 

14* 



162 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 



OPENING OF THK CONFEREXCES. 



When General Wayne overtook the mutineers at 
Princeton he found them regularly encamped, 
everything being arranged in order, and the men 
under the usual discipline. He himself and two 
of the oflScers accompanying him were admitted to 
the camp. The rest who came with him were 
excluded. General Wayne immediately opened a 
conference with the leaders in respect to their com- 
plaints and grievances, and to the means that he 
had at his command for remedying them. 



DELEGATION FROM CONGRESS. 



He was soon joined in these conferences by a 
delegation from Congress. For the Congress — then 
in session at Philadelphia — when the news was 
brought to them of the mutiny, had been greatly 
alarmed in view of the consequences that might 
ensue ; and had immediately appointed a delegation 
to proceed at once to New Jersey, with a view of 
meeting the men on the way and holding a confer- 
ence with them. 

The committee of Congress, accompanied by 
President Reed, the chief executive of the State 
of Pennsylvania, and several other officers, and 
escorted, moreover, by a troop of horse, set off a* 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 163 

once, and traveled with all dispatch toward the 
ecene of danger. 

Tlia EMISSARIES FROM THE BRITISH ARMY. 

In the roean time the emissaries which had been 
sent from the British general in New York, arrived 
at the camp, with their offers of food, clotiiing, pro- 
tection and money to the men if they would come 
over to their side. The sergeants in command of 
the mutineers, immediately seized these men and 
delivered them up, as spies, to General Wayne. 
They said that they, the mutineers, were not traitors, 
or deserters, and had no idea of abnndoning the 
cause of their country, still less of going over to 
the enemy. They were not "Arnolds," they said, 
— for the treason of Arnold had occurred not long 
before this time, and his name had already become 
a hy-word of reproach — but true men, ready still 
at any time to be led against the enemy. All that 
they were contending fur was that while they were 
themselves faithful to their duty, they should not 
be subject to intolerable injustice and oppression 
fi-om the government and the country. 

The conduct of the men in seizing and delivering 
up the British agents tended very strongly to quiet 
the apprehensions and anxieties which the authori- 
ties had felt, and greatly facilitated the negotiations, 



164 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

PRESroENT REED AND TUB DELEGATION. 

It was necessary for President Eeed and the con- 
gressional delegation to meet the men at a formal 
conference, in affecting the final settlement, and they 
were for a time quite uncertain about the expediency 
and safety of trusting themselves in their hands. 
A mutiny, whatever may be the apparent formality 
of its organization, is regarded by all regularly 
constituted authorities as a lawless mob, and no one 
could tell what excitements might suddenly break 
out among these men when they found prominent 
persons from among those against whom they had 
been so exasperated, in their hands, and at their 
mercy. In fact the delegation considered General 
Wayne and his two officers, though treated with 
apparent kindness and consideration, as really pris- 
oners, and no one knew what would be their ulti- 
mate fate. 

President Reed, however, though with many mis- 
givings, decided to take the risk of putting himself 
in their power. He had but one life to lose, he 
said, and his country had the first claim to it. 

President Reed took the most prominent part iu 
the transaction, not only because he was the highest 
civil officer present at the time, but also because 
the troops in mutiny were chiefly those of the 
Pennsylvania line. 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. IQ^y 

THE CONFERENCE. 

At length, on a day appointed, President Reed 
with his suite of attendants, advanced to the camp 
of the mutineers, wliich was near the college a-t 
Princeton. Thej found guards posted at th-o 
entrances, and all the other observances of a regular 
military encampment in full force. The men were 
paraded in line, ready to receive their visitoi'S with 
military honors. They were even prepared to fire 
a salute of artillery, having brought with them six 
pieces of cannon, but President Reed requested that 
this should not be done, for fear that the reports of 
the guns might create an alarm in the surrounding 
country. 

It is not necessary here to detail all the particu- 
lars of the conference, but only to say that an 
agreement was made by which the demands of the 
men, which were after all only reasonable and just, 
were to be substantially complied with,— that is, 
those who had enlisted for three years or the war, 
and who had reached the end of three years of 
service, were to be discharged, and proper arrange- 
ments were to be made in respect to the clothing 
and pay of the rest. The force Avas soon after 
marched forward to Trenton, where tiie promised 
arrangements were carried into 3flfect, and the men 
returned to their duty. 



166 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

THE BRITISH AGENTS. 

The men who had been sent by the British gen* 
eml in New York to attempt to buy over the muti- 
neers, were bj the laws of war, spies. They were 
tried by a court-martial and hung at the cross-roada 
near Trenton. In a moral point of view they had 
done nothing wrong, having only obeyed the com- 
mand of their superior officer in coming within the 
enemy's lines, at the hazard of their lives, in hope 
of gaining a great advantage for the cause in which 
they were contending. But war does not look upon 
things at all from any moral point of view, but 
obeys the behests of military necessity alone ; and 
military necessity requires that secret emissaries 
from the enemy, taken within any military camp, 
must die. 

REWARDS OFFERED FOR THE APPREHENSION OF THE SPIES. 

The mutineers, as has already been said, during 
their march and at their encampment at Princeton, 
were under the command of their sergeants, a 
grade of subordinate and non-commissioned officers, 
chosen from the men. and usually considered as 
specially sympathizing with them — not belonging 
themselves to the class of gentlemen officers. The 
spies, when they came and made themselves and 
their errand known, were arrested and delivered to 



THE DISBANDING OF THE AKMY. 167 

Genera^ Wayne hv two of these sergeants. After 
the difficulty was all settlod, the authorities oflfered 
the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars each to 
these men, as a reward for their fidelity. 

The men declined to receive the reward, saying 
that the act of arresting the men was not specially 
theirs. In making the arrest they only obeyed the 
orders of the whole board of sergeants, who directed 
everything. The amount of the reward then, five 
hundred dollars, was oflfered to the sergeants, col- 
lectively, in order that it might be divided among 
them. 

They replied that in sending the spies to General 
Wayne they had not acted through any expectation 
of reward, but only from a sense of duty to the 
cause. They therefore, they added, did not con- 
sider themselves as entitled to any other recompense 
than the love of their country, and had jointly 
agreed not to accept of any other. 

JUST ESTIMATION OP THE CONDUCT OF THE MUTINEERa 

If common soldiers, or those who are in a social 
position to sympathize with them, were the writers 
of history, the action of the men in this mutiny 
would not only have been defended as justifiable 
and proper, but the whole transaction, considered 
in connection with all the circumstances that at* 



1C8 rilE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

tended it, would have been conspicuously exhibited 
as one of the incidents of the war which show some 
of the noblest qualities of the American character, 
in a very striking point of view, and one conse- 
quently of which Americans have great reason to 
be proud. 

But histories are written in general by those who 
are most in sympathy with the regularly constituted 
authorities, and such authorities can never admit 
that a mutiny is, under any circumstances what- 
ever, other than a crime. Considering, however, 
the noble manner in which these men acted, and 
the calmness, prudence and moderation that they 
evinced in the measures which they adopted, none 
of those who have narrated the facts have had the 
heart to condemn the actors, and as they could not 
commend them, they have usually passed over the 
subject very briefly, using few words, and making 
fewer comments. 

GENERAL DISCONTENT OF THE ARMY TOWARD THE CLOSE OF 
THE WAR. 

There were various other occasions on which the 
dissatisfaction of the soldiers produced serious dif- 
ficulty during the course of the war, and the dis- 
content and dissatisfaction which they felt became 
deeper and more general as the contest drew toward 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 169 

a close. For many months before peace was actually 
concluded, it was evident to all that the end of the 
war was drawing near. While therefore the troops 
were still kept together in the various camps, it was 
pretty certain that their active services would not 
be any longer needed, and this general conviction, 
— though it ought not to have produced any such 
effect — did, in fact, greatly diminish the degree of 
urgency felt by the states, in regard to their obliga- 
tion to comply with the requisitions of Congress for 
raising money to provide for immediate wants of the 
men, and for the arrearages of their pay. 

GENERAL Washington's remonstrances. 

General Washington often remonstrated against 
the injustice and the danger of this neglect. He 
wrote to Congress, to the governors of the states, 
and to leading men in all parts of the country, 
urging upon them the duty of providing the means 
of satisfying the just claims of the men before the 
time should arrive for disbanding them. Not only 
would it be ungenerous and unjust for the country 
to neglect this duty, but it would be highly dan- 
gerous to do so. He trembled, he said, for the 
consequences of sending forth so large a body of 
men, to be scattered through the community, all 
utterly destitute, — half clothed, and without any 
15 



170 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

means of reaching their homes except through tho 
charity of the people on the way, and all in a state 
of nrreat irritation and resentment against the gov- 
ernment of their country, on account of the neglect 
and injustice with which they had been treated. If 
now, nfter exacting service from them for years, 
under circumstances of extreme exposure and suf- 
fering, in which they had undergone " all that 
human nature is capable of enduring this side of 
death," the government were to dismiss them with- 
out even making provision for the arrears of the 
slender wages which they had bound themselves to 
pay them, but leaving them far from their friends and 
homes, and without any means whatever of earning 
a livelihood, he thought that scenes of disorder and 
violence might ensue by which the peace of the 
country would be greatly disturbed. 

SOME SMALL EXCUSE FOR THE INJUSTICE. 

It should somewhat diminish the pride and self- 
glorification with which the nation looks back at 
the present day to the grand and heroic action of 
their forefathers in the days of the revolution, that 
such a state of things as this could be allowed to 
exist. There is, however, some small excuse for 
the injustice of the country toward the men to whoso 
services they owed so much, in the great difiicul- 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 171 

tie8 of the situation, and the extreme imperfection 
and inefficiency of the governmental machinery by 
which the remedy was to be applied. The general 
government, it must be remembered, was then a 
confederation only, and Congress was only a species 
of commission with no power to act, except so far 
as the states should from time to time furnish them 
with the means. Congi-ess could indeed determine 
what was to be done, but had no power to do it. It 
oould not lay or collect taxes, nor in any other way 
carry into effect any of its decisions, except those 
relating to the actual operations of the armies in 
the field. In the case of money and supplies, they 
could only decide how much was required, and then 
apportion the amount among the several states, leav- 
ing the different legislatures to pass the necessary 
laws for raising their respective shares, and then to 
commission their local executives to carry these laws 
into effect. 

The specific measures for carrying the requisitions 
of Congress into execution bcina: thus referred to 
thirteen different legislatures, each of which was 
composed of men representing a great variety of 
conflicting interests, of course encountered innu- 
merable difficulties and delays. Long debates were 
held in the several states, on the best mode of rais- 
ing the tiix, and on the proportions in which it 



172 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

should fall upon this or tliat article, or upon this or 
that class of the population. Whatever shape the 
law seemed about to assume, there were always 
many who wished to effect a change in it before it 
was passed, and they of course resorted to every 
means of protracting the debate, and procuring 
postponements and delays, — their policy being 
aided, of course, by those who did not wish the 
money to be raised at all. 

There were always some of this latter class. 
They did not openly avow any desire absolutely to 
refuse to pay the soldiers their due, but they wished 
the payment to be made in some other way than the 
one proposed. They, perhaps, charged the responsi- 
bility for the diflSculty upon Congress. Congress 
had not managed affairs wisely. If they had done 
this thing, or had not done that, the emergency 
would not have occurred. Or the Congress ought 
to contrive some way of borrowing the money from 
capitalists, or by means of a loan negotiated abroad, 
so as to give the country time to recover a little 
from the effects of the war before heavy burdens of 
taxation were laid upon the people. 

Thus there were endless excuses and causes of 
embarrassment and delay, which, operating upon 
such a number of different legislatures, put every- 
thing like combined and efficient action out of 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 173 

the question, and the poor soldiers were left to 
suffer. 

THE PROPER REMEDY. 

The obvious remedy was to reorganize the system 
in such a way as to confer upon the general govern- 
ment executive powers sufficient to enable it to 
carry into effect its ordinances and measures itself, 
by its own officers and agents, on a uniform system 
for the whole country, leaving the States to manage 
their own local affairs alone, — that is to say, to change 
the confederation into a 2inion so far as all national 
affairs were concerned, leaving it a confederation as 
before in respect to local affairs. This remedy waa 
afterward applied, but the time for it had not yet 
come. 

SPECIAL EXERTIONS MADE BY WASHINQTON TO AVERT THE 



Washington, in the meantime, did everything in 
his power to avert the threatening danger. He 
sent urgent representations to Congress and to the 
governors of the several States to induce them to 
press forward the adoption of the necessary measures 
without delay. His recommendations, and especially 
the statements of facts with which he enforced them, 
produced their effect, and something was done by 
means of which Washington could satisfy some of 
15* 



17 i THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

the more pressing wants of the men, and could also 
in some degree come to a settlement of their claims 
for arrearages, and give them pledges in respect to 
arrangements which were to be made for the future 
payment of them. 

rURLODGHS. 

He also undertook cautiously to commence the 
process of dispersing the troops, by granting fur- 
loughs to all who desired it, and allowing them to 
go to their homes. Peace had not yet been made 
absolutely sure, and therefore it was not safe 
altogether to dismiss any considerable number of 
the men. But Washington deemed it safe to allow 
a portion of them to withdraw from the camps, 
subject to the power of the government to recall 
them if occasion should require. By this means 
the danger which might have attended the sudden 
disbanding of a large number of destitute and dis- 
contented men was greatly diminished, 

THREATENED CONSPIRACY AMONG THE TROOPS. 

The discontent and irritation of the soldiers 
seemed to arrive at its height in the spring. At 
this time hostilities had in a great measure ceased, 
and the main body of the army was encamped on 
the banks of the Hudson, a short distance above 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 175 

New York, while the British held the city, which, 
however, they were preparing to evacute. Wash- 
ington had his head-quarters at Newburgh, fifty or 
sixty miles above the city. 

The officers and soldiers of the army during the 
preceding winter had had little else to do than to 
reflect upon their position, and brood over the 
gloomy prospects that were before them, if they 
were to be discharged and sent to their homes in 
the destitute condition in which they found them- 
selves likely to be placed. The officers in particular 
began to feel extremely uneasy. Many of them 
had been in service during the whole period of the 
war. Those whose health had not been seriously 
impaired by the diseases of the camp had become 
prematurely old and infirm through exposure and 
suffering. They had expended not only the little 
pay which they had received, but also their own 
private means, and they had become disqualified 
for earning a livelihood by any of the ordinary 
occupations of civil life. After having spent the 
flower of their days in toil and suffering to protect 
the rights of millions of people against a very 
determined foe, and to lay the foundation of a great 
and independent government, and having fully 
succeeded in their work, they saw nothing before 
them for the remainder of their days but to live tho 



176 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

life of wretched outcasts, in poverty and shame, and 
dependent on charity even for their daily bread — ■ 
while the great people whom they had been the 
instruments of redeeming went on triumphantly in 
the career of prosperity and wealth which was 
opening before them. 

ANONYMOUS ADDRESSES CIRCULATED IN OAMP. 

While things were in this state a great excitement 
was produced by several anonymous addresses which 
were circulated among the officers in Washington's 
camp, calling upon them to form a combination for 
the assertion of their rights, and for forcing the 
governmentj if necessary, to do them justice. The 
addresses represented in very earnest and vigorous 
language the terribly humiliating and destitute con- 
dition to which the officers and soldiers would be re- 
duced, if they allowed themselves to be disarmed and 
disbanded before proper provision was made by the 
government for fulfilling its obligations to them ; and 
it called upon them not to submit to tliis wrong. The 
course which these communications proposed as the 
proper one to be pursued was first to address the 
government in the most firm and decided manner, 
demandinor their rights, and then if their demand 
should not be complied with, to refuse to give up 
their arms, but to put their beloved chief, meaning 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 177 

Washington, at their head, and take the means of 
redress into their own hands. 

Many cases have occurred in history where the 
leaders of a great army, the foremost among them 
at the head, have at the close of a long war, 
retained their arms and organization, overturned 
the civil government and established a military one 
in its stead. Julius Caesar and the first Napoleon 
are two conspicuous examples of this mode of insta- 
ting a military leader in supreme and irresponsible 
power, and Washington might have at least at- 
tempted to make himself a third, if he had been so 
disposed. 

CONDUCT OP WASHINGTON IN THE EMEEGENCY. 

He was, however, not so disposed. Instead of 
taking advantage of the occasion to make himself 
an emperor, he devoted all his powers and all his 
influence, both with the army on one side, and with 
Congress, the different state legislatures, and the 
country on the other, to heal the breach. He came 
before the officers in a meeting which they held to 
take these proposals into consideration, and there 
made an address to them, expressing principles so 
exalted and noble, combmed with sentiments of 
the strongest personal attachment to them, as the 
beloved comrades who had been joined with him in 



178 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

BO long and arduous a work, and had endured with 
hira so many sufferings, — while at the same time 
he evinced a just sense of the wrongs which they 
had endured, and explained the measures which he 
was adopting to secure redress for them by proper 
and legitimate modes, that the angry feelings of the 
men assembled were greatly soothed, and the danger 
of an open insurrection of the army against the 
government was averted. 

He also wrote new and more earnest letters to 
Congress, and to the governors of the states, repre- 
senting the danger of the crisis, and the justice of 
the demands made by the army, in such a light 
that new efforts Avere made, and before long the 
claims of the men were substantially satisfied, and 
the way was prepared for the peaceable dispersion 
of the troops when the time at length arrived. 

Washington's farewell to the army. 

The occasion, however, of Washington's farewell 
to his troops preparatory to their final separation, 
was a very sad and sorrowful one, for besides the 
pain of parting from one whom the men had always 
looked up to as a father, their prospects for the 
future, notwithstanding all that had been done for 
them by Congress, including the engagements yet 
to be fulfilled, were very dark and gloomy. They 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY, 179 

Dade each other and their beloved general farewell 
in much sorrow and with many anxious forebodings, 
and went forth into the wide Avorld where many of 
them had no friends and no home, — and no visible 
means of future subsistence — with hearts full of 
despondency and gloom. 

WASHINGTON'S PARTING WITH HIS OFFICERS. 

The final parting of Washington from his prin- 
cipal officers, was, if possible, still more afiecting. 
The interview took place in New York a few days 
after the British troops had evacuated the city, and 
the American authorities had been put in possession. 
Washington remained in town two or three days, 
for the purpose of bringing his military duties to a 
close, and also of joining in certain festivities pro- 
posed by some of the principal inhabitants. 

When the appointed day arrived, a barge, 
elegantly fitted up, was prepared to convey him 
across the Hudson River to the Jersey shore, that 
he might proceed to Philadelphia, with a view of 
settling his accounts with the department of war 
there, and then formally resigning his commission. 
The barge was stationed at Whitehall, near the 
battery, and a military escort was provided to attend 
him through the street. 

The officers met to take their leave of him at the 



180 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

hotel where he lodged. When they were all 
assembled he was introduced into the room. He 
went to a side-board, poured out a glass of wine, 
and as he raised it to his lips in presence of them 
all, — though so much moved that it was difficult for 
him to utter the words, — he said to them, that the 
time for their parting had come, and that it was 
with a heart full of love and gratitude that he took 
leave of them ; — adding the wish that their future 
days might be as prosperous and happy as their 
previous ones had been honorable and glorious. 

Then, bowing, he touched the glass to his lips, 
in token of drinking to the health and happiness of 
his friends. 

He then said that he could not conveniently come 
to take them severally by the hand, the room being 
very full ; but he wished that each one of them would 
come to him. This they did ; and the parting 
salutation was given in this way, accompanied by 
inarticulate expressions of good will, and many tears. 

Washington then immediately left the hotel, and, 
followed by a long procession, he walked in silence 
to Whitehall, where the barge was awaiting him. 
It was then about two o'clock. As the barge left 
the pier Washington turned toward the people that 
crowded in throngs upon the shore, and taking o0 
his hat waved to them his farewell. 



THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 181 

SETTLEMENT OF THE ACCOUNTS. 

Washington proceeded on his journey across the 
State of New Jersey. The people thronged the 
towns and villages through which he passed, and 
received him everywhere with joyful acclamations. 
He arrived at length at Philadelphia, and remained 
there for a few days to present and settle his ac- 
counts in the proper oflBces. These accounts included 
only charges for actual expenses incurred by him 
during the war. Except this reimbursement for 
actual outlay, he would accept no remuneration for 
the services that he had rendered. 

FINAL RESIGNATION. 

Having closed this business, he proceeded to 
Annapolis, where Congress was then in session, in 
order to render back his commission into the hands 
of those who had conferred it, thus formally resign- 
ing his command and divesting himself entirely of 
all power. He had intended to have sent in the 
commission, accompanied by a written communica- 
tion, instead of surrendering it in person ; but 
Congress desired that the ceremony should be per- 
formed in a more formal and solemn manner. They 
■were probably aware that this act of quietly resign- 
ing his power into the hands of the civil authorities 
that had conferred it, when the object for which it 
1(5 



182 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

had been conferred had been accomplished, was one 
which would be recognized by mankind as the 
crowning glory of the hero's life, and one which 
would forever distinguish liim in the estimation of 
the world from all previous conquerors and founders 
of empires, of whatever country or age. 

THE CEREMONY. 

At the appointed time, which was at twelve 
o'clock on the 20th of December, 1783, the hall of 
Congress was filled, the members occupying their 
seats in the centre, while all the other available 
space on the floor and in the galleries was crowded 
with ladies, public officers, and other such persons 
of distinction as had been able to obtain admission. 
Washington was then introduced, and conducted to 
a chair which had been placed for him in a central 
position. As soon as silence was restored he rose 
with his commission in his hand, and made a brief 
address to the president. 

'*The great events," he said, "on which my 
resignation depended having at length taken place, 
I have now the honor to offer my sincere congratu- 
lations to Congress, and of presenting myself before 
them, to surrender into their hands the trust com 
mitted to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring 
from the service of my country." 



THE DISBANDING OP THE ARMY. 183 

Then, after speaking a few words in strong com- 
mendation of the officers and soldiers that had 
served under his command, and earnestly commend- 
ing them to the favor of Congress and to the grati- 
tude of the country, he concluded by saying : 

" I consider it an indispensable duty to close thia 
last solemn act of my official life by commending 
the interests of our dearest country to the protec- 
tion of Almighty God, and those who have the 
superintendence of them to his holy keeping. 

" And having now finished the work assignee! 
me, I retire from the great theatre of action ; and 
bidding an afiectionate f irewell to this august body, 
under whose orders I have long acted, I here offer 
my commission and take my leave of all the employ- 
ments of public life." 

As he said these words he delivered his commis- 
sion into the hands of the president, who, on 
receiving it, made a brief but very touching address 
to Washington in reply. 

Those who witnessed the scene recorded the fact 
that the whole audience were entirely overcome by 
the emotions which it awakened in their minds. 

RKTURN TO MOUNT VP:RX0N. 

On the following day, the twenty-first, Washing- 
ton set out on his return to his home in Virginia 



184 THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMY. 

The journey occupied several days on account of 
the great desire of the people to see him on the 
way, and the many interruptions to his progress 
occasioned by the requests made to him, at the 
different towns which he passed through, that he 
would stop to receive addresses from the authorities, 
and to take part in ceremonies of welcome and con- 
gratulation. He arrived at Mount Vernon on 
Christmas Eve, just in time to join in the grand 
festivities by which that occasion is always marked 
on every southern plantation, and which were 
redoubled in this case by the excessive delight 
experienced by all on the estate in seeing again 
their long absent chieftain, and welcoming him once 
more to his home. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE CONFEDERATION. 

THREE SUCCESSIVE FORMS OF COMBINATION ADOPTED BY THB 

STATES, 

The states now constituting the American repub- 
lic have combined for united action under three dis- 
tinct organic forms, in three successive periods, 
namely, that of the Continental Congress, of the 
Confederation, and of the Union. The Continental 
Congress continued in power for six years, namely, 
from 1775 to 1781, — the Confederation for eight 
years, namely from 1781 to 1789, — and the Union 
for more than half a century, up to the present 
time; and there is now every indication that with 
such modifications as it may make upon itself from 
time to time, by its own internal action, it will 
endure as long as any existing human institutions. 

ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE IN THE NATURE OF THESE SYSTEMS. 

The Continental Congress was essentially only 
an advisory body. It consisted of delegates ap- 
pointed in various ways by the several colonies, to 



186 THE CONFEDERATION. 

consult and advise, but with no formal power to act, 
except in the conduct of military operations. The 
Congress assumed to speak in the name of all the 
colonies, and to recommend to them severally what 
it was best to do ; but it had no authority really to 
decide any question, still less any power to carry 
such decisions into effect. Under the Confed- 
eration on the other hand, — which was the second 
form of combiuMtion, — the general government was 
clothed with certain powers to decide finally the 
questions coming before them, and to pass enact- 
ments binding on the states, but they had no power 
to carry their measures into effect. This was to be 
left to the states themselves. The Congress decided 
what money should be raised, and what number of 
men furnished, but then the actual raising of the 
men, and the collecting of the money was to be left 
to the state authorities alone, according to the quotas 
which Congress should assign to them respectively. 
In other words the states reserved to themselves all 
real power, but, in relation to national subjects, they 
bound themselves by a solemn compact to exercise 
their power in accordance with the decrees of the 
delegates representing them, in Congress assembled. 
Under this system, though there could be unity 
of plan, and in theory a certain unity of authority, 
there could be no real unity of action. 



THE CONFEDERATION. 187 

The country, however, succeeded in struggling 
through the period of the war under this system, 
though the difficulties and embarrassments en 
countered in the working of it were at times nearly 
fatal to the cause. 

NATURE OF A CONFEDERATION. 

This system was, as its name imports, a confeder- 
ation, that is a leaguing together of separate and 
independent governments, none of them surrender- 
ing any of their powers, but only agreeing to exer- 
cise their powers in respect to certain specified sub- 
jects, as should be determined upon by mutual 
agreement. 

THE UNION. 

The third plan was a Union, — that is a giving up 
by the states a portion of their governmental power, 
in order that the people of the country might mingle 
and blend themselves into one great community, in 
respect to all common and national purposes, while 
for all local purposes the states remained independent 
and sovereign as before. 

Thus, under the first system the organ of the 
combination, — the Congress, — could speak and rec- 
ommend, but could not decide or act. Under the 
second it could decide, but could only act through 



188 THE CONFEDERATION. 

the agency of the state governments. Under the 
third it could not only decide, but was provided 
with all the requisite machinery and power for car- 
rying its decisions and its measures into effect, 
within its own proper sphere, without consulting 
or calling upon the state governments at all. 

DURATION OP THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 

Although when the serious work of the war came 
on, the Continental Congress system was found to 
be wholly inefficient for the accomplishment of the 
purposes required, it was undoubtedly at the time 
of its adoption the wisest, and in fact the only mode 
of cooperation that was possible. It continued to 
fulfill its functions, as has already been said, until 
the year 1781, that is for a space of six years, and 
did not cease to exist until it had itself produced 
its successor, the Confederation, as that in its turn 
produced the Union, the last, and perfect form, which 
we hope will be perpetual. 

FIRST MOVEMENT IN FAVOR OP A CONFEDERATION. 

The total inadequacy of the powers of the Con- 
tinental Congress for the exigencies of the situation 
was perceived at once, and measures were com- 
menced almost immediately to establish some system 



THE CONFEDERATION. 189 

that should be more worthy of the name of a gov- 
ernment. In 1776, soon after the declaration of 
independence was made, a committee was appointed 
to draw up articles of confederation. In about a 
month the committee reported a plan. 

DEBATES ON TUB SUBJECT IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 

The subject was, however, so vast, so numberless 
were the forms which such a leao;ue might assume, 
so various were the conceptions and desires of the 
different members, arising partly from fundamental 
differences in their ideas of the nature of govern- 
ment, and partly from the diverse, and in some 
cases conflicting, interests of the different sections 
of country, that months passed away in discussing 
the various plans and projects brought forward in 
place of the one proposed by the committee, and in 
offering and debating innumerable amendments. 

Of course it was but a small portion of the time 
occupied by its sessions that Congress could devote 
to this business, their attention being mainly en- 
grossed by the immediate and pressing demands 
made upon them by the emergencies of the war. 
For during all this time, while they were engaged 
in the endeavor to construct some foundation of 
authority for their action, in a covenant among the 
States, they were obliged to act as it were without 



190 THE CONFEDERATION. 

authority in carrying forward the work of the 
revolution. 

ARTICLES OP CONFEDERATION ADOPTED AND PROPOSED TO THB 
STATES. 

It was not until November, 1777 — more than a 
year after the subject was first brought forward in 
Congress — that a plan of confederation was finally 
agreed upon, to be proposed to the States Ot 
course, it was necessary that it should be unani- 
mously agreed to by tbem before it could be bind- 
ing ; or, at least, it could only bind those who 
should thus assent to it. For this was an original 
compact, and no one State could be rightfully 
compelled by the others to come into it against its 
will. 

A confederation or constitution once made and 
formally agreed to, which contains icithin itself a 
provision for making alterations and amendments 
by a specified majority, may of course afterward be 
80 amended by that majority; and the minority, 
having previously agreed to the compact, the pro- 
vision for amendments included, will be bound by 
tlie decision. But the original compact, binding 
States previously entirely distinct and independent, 
can of course bind only those who voluntarily 
adopt it. 



THE CONFEDERATION. 191 

PROVISIONS OF THE PROPOSED CONFEDERATIO>f. 

The essential feature of the Confederation waa 
that the States bound themselves by a solemn 
league with each other that they, the States, would 
maintain and carry into effect whatever decisions the 
Congress, acting equally for all^ should decide 
upon, in relation to certain business of common 
interest — principally questions of peace and war, 
and those of commercial intercourse with foreign 
nations. 

Under the Union, subsequently created, the 
general government was clothed with power to 
maintain and carry into effect its measures itself, 
without calling upon the State governments at all, 
and this constituted the essential difference between 
the two systems. 

Thus under the Confederation, Congress was to 
decide, when any question should arise with any 
foreign nation, whether war should be made, and, 
if made, they were to notify to each State what its 
proportion was of the men and money required for 
the proper conduct of the military operations, and 
the States, on receiving this notification, were bound 
to raise their respective quotas. It was the same 
with all the other undertakings which Congress 
might ordain. And as a government can do nothing 
at all without men and money, wherever the control 



192 THE CONFEDERATION. 

over these supplies is placed there lies the real 
power. Under the Confederation this power was 
\eh wholly in the hands of States. 

The States positively bound themselves, it ia 
true, by their agreement to furnish the supplies 
when Congress called upon them to do it; but, in 
case of their refusal or neglect to respond, there 
were no means of compelling them to do so. 

MAJORITY REQUIRED. 

Nor were they bound to furnish the means of 
carrying into effect any measure resolved upon by 
Congress unless there was a majority of nine States 
in favor of it. The number of States being thirteen, 
a simple majority would have been seven. But a 
majority of nine to four was required before any 
State could be called upon to act. This provision 
was intended to render it certain that the case wa.s 
clear and decided before Congress could engage in 
any enterprise involving the country in expense, or 
committing it to any new course of foreign policy. 

THE STATES EQUAL UNDER THE CONFEDERATION. 

Each State being regarded as entirely sovereign 
and independent, and the national council being 
simply a league formed among them, no distinction 
was to be made among them, in respect to their voice 



THE CONFEDERATION. 193 

in the council, on account of differences of wealth, 
of territory, or of population. Any of them might, 
if it chose, send several delegates — any number 
from three to seven ; but in taking votes each Statt 
was to be counted as one. 

And yet in raising men and money the different 
States were required to furnish their respective 
quotas in proportion to the value of the real estate 
comprised within its limits. 

This plan of giving all the States, large and 
small, the same power in determining upon the 
measures to be adopted, while the large ones were 
to furnish far the greater portion of the means 
required for carrying the measures into effect, was 
very seriously objected to by tlie larger States, who 
thought that their voice in the decision ought to 
bear some proportion to the share of the burden 
which the decision imposed. But the smaller 
States thought that it would be entirely inconsistent 
with their dignity as sovereign and independent 
powers to join a league under any other terms than 
absolute equality in the council with the rest, both 
in considei'atiou and in power. 

This question was not easily settled. It led to 
much dissension and debate among the States when 
the articles were presented to them for ratification, 
and it caused a long delay on the part of many of 



194 THE CONFEDERATION. 

them before they would yield their final assent to 
the plan. 

NO EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT. 

There was, strictly speaking, no executive de- 
partment under this system, inasmuch as all the 
actual authority of government over individual cit- 
izens, was reserved by the States in their own hands. 
The general government had no immediate access 
at all to the individual citizen. It had only to direct 
the employment of such supplies of men and money 
as the States should furnish it. There was, of 
course, no chief magistrate to be elected, no cabinet 
of ministers, or other machinery of a central gov- 
ernment. Provision was made for the appointment 
of a committee to act in the place of Congress, dur- 
ing the intervals of the sessions, but so jealous were 
the people at that time of the rights of the individ- 
ual States, that it was provided by the articles that 
this committee should consist of one member from 
each State, so that even in the committee all the 
members of the league should stand upon an equal 
footing. 

COMMON CITIZENSHIP. 

The foregoing were the great essential principles 
of the Confederation. There were a number of 
subordinate provisions, tending to produce harmonj; 



TUE (ONFEDERATION. 195 

and good will among the people of the States, and 
to facilitate social and commercial intercourse amon^ 
them. Tiie people of each State were to have free 
access and egress to and from any other one, and 
no distinctions of any kind were to be made, by the 
laws or ordinances of any State, between its own 
citizens and those of the other members of the Con- 
federacy. 

And if any person guilty of crime were to escape 
from one State to another, he was not to be harbored 
and protected, but to be arrested and given up, to be 
tried in the State where the crime was alleged to 
have been committed. 

RESTRICTIONS ON SEPARATE STATE SOVEREIGNTY. 

By the proposed articles the several States bound 
themselves not to make war individually on any 
foreign power, nor even to hold any diplomatic in- 
tercourse with foreign nations, but in all cases to 
act on such questions in concurrence with the other 
States through Congress. They also agreed not to 
make any partial leagues or agreements with otiier 
nations, of any kind whatever. And no State was 
to own any vessels of war, or to organize and re- 
tain any armed force, except so far as authorized 8fl 
to do by the action of Congress. 



196 THE CONFEDERATION. 

PROVISION FOR THE SETTLEMENT OF QUESTIONS OP CONTROVEBSt 
ARISING BETWEEN ONE STATE AND ANOTHER. 

To prevent all possibility of any interruption to 
the internal interests of the country by hostilitiea 
between one State and another, systematic provision 
was made for the settlement of any question which 
might arise among them, by boards of referees, or 
temporary tribunals, appointed under the general 
direction of Congress, by the parties themselves if 
they could agree, and if not by a system of selec- 
tion, by the disputants, or by lot, or by the two 
methods combined. No permanent judicial tribunal 
was included in the plan. 

Thus it will be seen by a general survey of the 
system that it was substantially a plan for dividing 
the governmental power of the country into two 
great branches, all power of communication with 
the external world and all action in reference to it, 
being committed to the sole manugement and direc- 
tion of the general government, the several States 
agreeing, each in its own way and in its own pro- 
portion, to carry into effect such decisions as the 
general government should make ; while authority 
of every kind over individual citizens and local 
interests, and all the internal machinery of govern- 
ment, was retained exclusively in the hands of the 
States themselves. 



THE CONFEDERATION. 197 

THE ARTICLES OP CONFEDERATION ADOPTED BY CONGRESS AND 
TRANSMITTED TO THE STATES. 

It was not until the fall of 1777, that the articles 
were finally adopted by Congress, and ordered to 
be transmitted to the several States for their ratifi- 
cation. Tlie States were very slow in giving their 
sanction to the plan. And of course, as it was ex- 
tremely desirable that all the States should be 
included in any arrangement that should be made, 
and as no one could be included in it except by its 
own express consent, it became almost absolutely 
necessary to wait for an unanimous ratification be- 
fore the system could go into efiect. More than 
four years elapsed before this unanimous consent 
was obtained. The State of Maryland was the last 
to yield. Her adhesion was given in March, 1781, 
and on the following day Congress assembled under 
the Confederation as the organic law of the union. 

LITTLE ADVANTAGE GAINED. 

No very serious inconvenience, however, resulted 
from the delay ; for, after all, the condition of the 
government seems not to have been much changed 
by the adoption of the articles, — the Congress 
having exercised before, by the tacit acquiescence 
and consent of the States, pretty nearly the same 
powers with those conferred now upon it under the 
17* 



198 THE CONFEDERATION. 

Confederation, by a written instrument in a formal 
manner. Under tlie former system Congress could 
decide upon the measures to be adopted, and carry 
tliom into eiFect so far as the States severally by 
their voluntary action gave them the means. The 
Confederate Congress could decide more authori- 
tatively, it is true, and could require the States to 
furnish them the means to carry their measures into 
effect. But still all depended now as before upon 
the voluntary action of the States, for they were at 
liberty to comply or not to comply with the requi- 
sitions made upon them, since there was nowhere 
any provision made for enforcing compliance. 

During the remainder of the war, therefore, and 
for some time after hostilities were concluded, the 
government of the country moved slowly on, weak 
and inefficient in its action, holding a nominal 
authority over the direction of public affiiirs, but 
having no power to provide itself with the means 
of carrying its decisions into effect. 

INFLUENCE OP PEACE AND WAR IN EKSPECT TO THE OPEBATION 

OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. 

As soon as the war was over, and the army was 
disbanded, tlic machinery of the Confederation 
seemed to become more weak and its powers more 
insignificant than ever. It will probably always be 



THE CONFEDERATION. 199 

a characteristic of our compound system of govern- 
ment, — a general government chiefly for external, 
and local ones for internal, affairs, — that the rela- 
tive importance and prominence of the two branches 
of power will depend very much upon the condition 
of the country, whether it be in peace or in war. 
In time of peace and of quiet industry the State 
governments will as it were occupy the chief field 
of duty, while in time of war the general govern- 
ment will at once assume new importance, and often 
perhaps appear to usurp new powers, whereas it in 
fact only calls into exercise those that are perfectly 
legitiraate, thougli previously dormant and held in 
reserve. 

It has been strikingly so in the great rebellion, 
now in 1865 happily ended. One ostensible ground 
of the rebellion was to preserve the rights of the 
States, and diminish the power and prestige of the 
general government. The effect of the outbreak 
was at once to develop in the general government, 
by the natural and normal working of the system, 
a gigantic power fully adequate to the emergency, 
and in presence of which the State governments are 
comparatively silent and inactive. When, however, 
at length, the rebellion is ended, and an era of 
peace and quiet industry returns, the general 
government subsides into its ordinary channels. Its 



200 THE CONFEDERATION. 

vast armies are disbanded, its fleets of ships and 
ti'ansports are dispersed, a large portion of its forts 
are dismantled, and its acts and operations have 
less power to monopolize and absorb public atten- 
tion, while the functions of the State governments 
resume their wonted predominance in the thoughts 
and daily avocations of the citizens. 

TERMINATION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 

The termination of the revolutionary Trar pro- 
duced this effect in a remarkable degree upon the 
old government of the Confederation. It had, in 
fact, scarcely any life in itself, and was mainly kept 
in existence by the external pressure of difficulty 
and danger. As soon as this pressure was removed, 
all interest in the general government appeared 
rapidly to subside. The chief thing that then 
remained for Congress was the duty of providing 
ways and means for paying debts — always an irk- 
some and disagreeable task. It was still more 
irksome and disagreeable in this case as the body 
charged with it had no real power to do the thing 
required, but only to determine in what proportions 
the several States should do it. 

It was a long time before even a quorum to 
transact business could be secured. It was pro- 
Tided by the articles that nine States must be 



THE CONFEDERATION. 201 

represented in order to constitute a quorum. Now, 
each State was to pay the salary of its own dele- 
gates. They naturally wished to save this expense. 
So they allowed small obstructions to prevent or 
delay the appointment of delegates. The duties to 
be performed, too, were irksome, and were attended 
with responsibility without power. This caused it 
to be very little an object of desire on the part of 
statesmen to be chosen. The consequence was that 
for some time no business could be done, because no 
Congress could be assembled. 

RESIGNATION OF THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. 

The Secretary of the Treasury, after struggling 
for a year or more against the insurmountable 
diiSculties of his work, resigned his position, and 
no competent man could be found to take his place. 
Congress was obliged to appoint a committee to take 
charge of the financial affairs of the government. 
There was, however, very little that such a com- 
mittee could do. Debts were pressing, and even 
interest money was falling fast in arrear ; but the 
supply of funds coming in was extremely small, and 
there seemed to be no conceivable means of increas- 
ino- it. In a word, the financial condition of the 
government was fast becoming desperate. 



202 THE CONFEDERATION. 



THE ARMY. 



Even the physical force at the command of the 
general government rapidly dwindled away till it 
reached almost the vanishing point. There were 
only about seven hundred men reserved in the 
service when the army was disbanded, and this num- 
ber had gradually diminished, until at length only 
about fifty men in one place and twenty-five in 
another, were left to guard certain magazines. And 
this was the military establishment of what had 
been organized as a mighty nation. 

4 STATE OF COMPLETELY SUSPENDED ANIMATION BEACHED AT 
LAST. 

Whatever of vital power had been imparted to 
the system at first went on in this manner, wasting 
gradually away, until at length at one time, all life 
seemed to be extinct, and the government, so far as 
any visible or tangible embodiment of its authority 
was concerned, entirely ceased to exist. It will be 
remembered that provision had been made for the 
appointment of a committee of one from each State 
to act as a kind of executive board during the ad- 
journment of Congress. Such a committee was 
appointed. But in attempting to transact the 
business committed to them, they soon came to a 
hopeless state of disagreement, and the two parties 



THE CONFEDERATION. 203 

into which they were divided were so nearly equal 
that all action was paralyzed. The members of the 
committee finally separated and went to their homes, 
leaving the government without any representation 
whatever. 

SUBJECTS DEMANDING ATTENTION FROM THE GENERAL GOVBRN' 
MENT DURING THESE TIMES. 

And, though the interests depending upon the 
action of the general governnent were much less 
important now than during the continuance of the 
war, there were very important interests at stake, 
which required some efficient agency to attend to 
them. There were negotiations to be carried on 
with foreign powers, not only with a view to ar- 
ranging treaties of commerce, which now became 
quite necessary, but also to determine certain ques- 
tions relating to boundaries and other subjects that 
were not yet settled, and which threatened to lead 
to serious consequences if not soon arranged. There 
were questions at issue with Spain, in respect to 
the navigation of the Mississippi, which passed near 
its mouth through what was then Spanish territory. 
Tiie English, too, were very slow in giving up pos- 
session of some of the western forts, claiming that 
some of the obligations on our part, created by the 
treaty made with her, had not been fulfilled. There 



204 THE CONFEDERATION. 

were difficulties moreover, in respect to certain 
Indian tribes, and a system of policy to be framed 
and determined upon as the future policy of the 
country in dealing with them. There were also a 
great many perplexing questions in regard to the 
disposal of vast tracts of public land, which had 
belonged to the several States, but which it was now 
proposed should be ceded to the general govern- 
ment, to be held under their jurisdiction as terri- 
tories, with a view to their ultimate settlement and 
formation into States to be joined to the Confeder- 
ation. 

GENERAL CON7I0TION OF THE NECESSITT THAT A STRONOBB 
GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE ESTABLISHED. 

These questions, though all important, were not 
of such immediate and pressing urgency as to force 
the country to supply, by an outside pressure upon 
the Confederate government, the necessary stimulus 
to bring its feeble and waning vitality into ac- 
tion. Indeed, the conviction was gradually ex- 
tending that some very different system of national 
combination than that then existing, under which 
the general government had no power to supply 
itself with the means of acting — but was wholly 
dependent on the concurrent action of thirteen dif- 
ferent and independent sovereignties to supply 
them, was indispensably required This feeling 



THE CONFEDERATION. 205 

gradually extended itself through the community 
for several years, and different statesmen of emi- 
nence were turning their thoughts toward the nature 
of the change which it would be necessary soon to 
make, when certain events occurred which greatly 
tended to hasten this determination. These events 
were riots and disturbances which broke out in dif- 
ferent parts of the country, and which the state 
authorities found themselves incompetent to manage. 
The most serious of these disturbances took place 
in the heart of Massachusetts, and is known in his- 
tory as Shay's insurrection. 

shay's insurrection. 

The causes of all these disturbances were sub- 
stantially the same. They arose from the general 
exhaustion of the country after the long war, the 
poverty of the mass of the people, the pressure of 
debt, the scarcity of money, and the harassing 
operation of the legal processes by which the pay- 
ment of debts was enforced. All this time there 
were many persons in the great cities, living in 
wealth and luxury, some of whom had made their 
fortunes in some way or other out of the war, and 
others by the lucky commercial ventures for which 
Buch stormy times always afforded many occasions 
to shrewd business men living in the great commer- 
18 



206 THE CONFEDERATION. 

cial centres. The officers of the State government, 
too, received handsome salaries, which the people 
in their destitution were taxed very heavily to pay. 
The professional men also charged high fees, and 
both these classes and the wealthy people generally, 
especially in the large towns, affected in their mode 
of living a good deal of the aristocratic state and 
display which English usages had long since intro- 
duced into the country. 

It is not surprising that under these circumstances 
many of the people considered themselves aggrieved. 
They attributed their distress to the action of tho 
government, and especially to the harshness of the 
measures for collecting debts. There were a great 
number of men in the interior of Massachusetts 
who were under this excitement, and a certain Cap- 
tain Daniel Shays, who had been an officer in the 
revolutionary army, and had there acquired some 
military experience and skill, put himself at the 
head of them. He called them together at Wor- 
cester, and organized them into quite a regular 
army, which embodied at one time a force of about 
a thousand men. The immediate objects of the 
insurgents, so far as they appeared to have formed 
any definite designs, were to prevent the session 
of the courts in Worcester and Springfield, and 
also — with a view to ulterior operations — to get 



THE CONFEDERATION. 207 

possession of the arms in the arsenal at Spring- 
field. 

THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT POWERLESS. 

Of course this state of things produced general 
alarm throughout the country, and the general gov- 
ernment was at once looked to as the source from 
which the required help was to be obtained. Now 
the general government had power to send troops tc 
the scene of danger, provided it only had troops to 
send. But it had no troops. It could obtain troops 
easily if it had money. But it had no money. It 
could have borrowed money easily if it had the 
power to lay and collect taxes to pay it. But it 
had no such power. It could only engage with the 
capitalists to whom it applied for a loan, that it 
would require the several States to lay such taxes, 
— each for its own fair proportion of the debt ; but 
this was not likely to be considered by the capitalists 
who were to furnish the money as very satisfactory 
security. 

It was, however, at length ascertained that some 
wealthy men in Boston, alarmed probably by the 
danger to themselves and to their property, 
threatened by the outbreak, offered to take the risk 
of furnishing the money to the general government, 
but before the arrangement could be completed and 



208 THE CONFEDERATION, 

an army raised, the insurrection broke out in full 
force, and the authorities of Massachusetts were 
left to deal with it alone. 

THE INSURRKCTION SCBDUED. 

The governor of Massachusetts called out the 
militia, and a force of four thousand men was put 
under the command of General Lincoln. This 
force moved at once into the disturbed district, and 
something like a civil war raged in the interior of 
Massachusetts for many weeks. All hope of any 
aid from the general government seems to have been 
abandoned, and Massachusetts called, instead, upon 
the neighboring States for their aid. This aid was 
readily furnished, and by means of great firmness 
and decision in the adoption of the necessary 
measures, and great moderation and forbearance in 
the execution of them, the insurgents were finally 
captured or dispersed, with few actual conflicts, and 
comparatively little loss of life. 

Many of the leaders were taken, tried and con- 
demned to death, but they were not executed. 
Indeed so good ground had they for their complaints, 
and BO severe had been the hardships and sufl'erings 
that had led them to this desperate mode of redress, 
that it was estimated that one-third of the people 
of the State believed that they were justified io 
taking up arms. 



THE CONFEDERATION. 209 

ALL CONFIDENCE IN THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT FINALLY 
LOST. 

One of the most important results of Shay's 
insurrection was completely to convince the country 
of the total inadequacy of the system of the govern- 
ment which had been adopted for the purposes in 
view. If, in the case of a dangerous insurrection 
breaking out in the heart of the country, the 
general government proved utterly helpless, so that 
the State whose peace was broken must be left to 
her own resources, and to such voluntary aid as she 
could obtain by calling upon her neighbors in her 
distress, what possible reliance could be placed upon 
it in any time to come. It soon appeared that all 
respect for so frail and feeble a system was gone, 
and demands began to arise from all parts of the 
country for the calling of a general convention to 
devise a more eflScient plan of organization. 

At length delegates to such a convention were 
appointed by all the States. The time for the meet- 
ing of it was the fourteenth of May, 1787, about 
three years after the close of the revolutionary war. 

During all this time Washington had remained 
quietly at his home at Mount Yernon, taking com- 
paratively little part in the management of public 
affairs. He was, however, now appointed by the 
State of Virginia one of the delegates to the new 
convention. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE UNION. 
ORIGIN OF THE CONVENTION. 

Although Washington took no prominent part in 
the management of public affairs immediately after 
the close of the war, and during the continuance 
of the confederation, the origin of the actual con- 
vention which formed the federal constitution is 
traced to his agency. While living in retirement 
at Mount Vernon, his mind was naturally turned 
to the condition of his native State, and to plans of 
improvement which might promote her welfare. 
Among other plans he conceived the idea of im- 
proving the navigation of the Potomac, and perhaps 
connecting that river with the Ohio, by a canal. 
This plan would require the concurrent action of 
several States, and he took measures for having del- 
egates appointed from the States interested, to meet 
at Mount Vernon in order to consider the subject. 
In discussing the plan proposed the delegates were 
naturally led to the consideration of other plans 



THE UNION. 211 

connected with, or in some way bearing upon the 
project of the canal, and affecting a still greater 
number of States ; and this turned their thoughts to 
the great necessity there was of a general govern- 
ment of the country that should be invested with 
some substantial power, by means of which national 
interests of this kind might be provided for in a 
regular and proper manner. The discussions arising 
in this way led to a gradual enlargement of the 
ideas of those who took part in them, until at length 
all partial schemes were abandoned, and it was 
finally determined that application should be made 
to Congress to call a general convention of all the 
States, to devise and recommend such changes in 
the articles of confederation as should give the 
country an efficient general government. 

DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY. 

The difficulties in the way of the accomplishment 
of any such scheme were enormous, and might well 
liave been considered by those who projected it, as 
absolutely insurmountable. It is plain that no 
power could be granted to the general government, 
except such as should be taken away for this purpose 
from the several States. Now each of the States 
considered itself, as it really was, independent and 
supreme in the management of its afii\irs, and each 



212 THE UNION. 

attached great importance to its supremacy. They 
had been allied together, it is true, in a war 
against a common foe, but there had been hitherto 
no other bond to unite them. The Confederate 
Congress had indeed continued feebly to fulfill its 
functions since the war was closed, but its duty had 
been chiefly confined to the adjustment of the ac- 
counts connected with the war, that still remained 
unsettled, and notifying the several States of the 
amounts which they were respectively called upon 
to pay, from time to time, in order to bring the 
business to a close. 

Thus what we now call the general government 
of the country, at that time was not in fact, and 
was not then regarded, as a government at all, — but 
only a confederation of governments exercising 
power through a kind of board of commissioners 
appointed to manage the affairs of thirteen allied 
States during the time of war, and continued in 
ofiice after the war was closed, mainly for the pur- 
pose of settling up its ajQfairs. The only real gov- 
ernments were the governments of the States. 

GBKAT DIPORTANCB ATTACHED TO THE IDEA OF STATE SOV 

EREIGNTT. 

Now the people were everywhere extremely 
tenacious of this idea of the sovereignty and inde- 



THE UNION. 213 

pendence of the States. The idea of a general 
nationality had not yet been formed in any minds, 
ind such an idea cannot at once be created by con- 
ventions and constitutions. The several States had 
been settled in very different ways ; the character of 
the people inhabiting them was very diverse ; their 
ideas, their conceptions of the nature of government, 
and all their social usages were extremely various. 
Then there was none of that universal intercourse 
and intercommunication which exists at the present 
day to make the people of different regions ac- 
quainted with each other, and to mix and blend 
their ideas and opinions. There were not only nf 
railroads, but not even stage-coaches as a means ol 
intercourse. Thus, instead of their being, as now 
between Boston and New York, for example, twe 
or three thousand people sometimes whirled rapidly 
through in each direction in a single day, the only 
mode of intercourse was by the long journey of a 
solitary traveller plodding his weary way for a week 
or more over rough and muddy roads, on horseback 
or in his travelling gig. In fact, for all practical 
purposes, each iState was in a condition of almost 
sbsolute social isolatior\ from all the rest. 

Still the extreme desirableness of some common 
bond of union, as a means of enabling this large 
fan)ily of small sovereignties to maintain its stand- 



214 THE UNION. 

ing in the world, and protect its common rights and 
interests, was indisputably clear, and all were 
agreed that something must be done. The difficulty 
would be in determining where and in what way the 
power of the small sovereignties should be curtailed 
in order to obtain the materials for constituting the 
great and general one. 

GENKRAL CHARACTER OP TUE CONVENTION. 

The convention met in Philadelphia, as has 
already been said, early in May in 1787, and it 
continued in session all summer. Washington was 
elected president. At length, about the middle of 
September, the body concluded its labors, and 
agreed upon a system to be recommended to the 
several States for their adoption. 

We are accustomed to think much of the wisdom 
of our ancestors, as displayed in the formation of 
the federal constitution, and to picture to our minds, 
in conceiving of the scene presented by the con- 
vention during the period of their deliberations, an 
assembly of calm, venerable and patriotic men, 
without selfishness, without party spirit or political 
animosities of any kind, but all intent only on 
calmly considering in friendly consultation, and 
harmoniously adopting, what they considered best 
for the interest of their common country. 



THE UNION. 215 

But such a conception as this would be extremely- 
visionary and unreal. The four months occupied 
by the debates of the body were spent in incessant 
controversy and conflict, nearly every man watch- 
ing with great jealousy the interests of his own 
State, and all, or rather almost all, struggling with 
tlie greatest earnestness, and sometimes with great 
heat and passion, to obtain special advantages for 
their own special constituents. The wisdom and 
patriotism for which this assembly has been so 
renowned throughout the world in later times mani- 
fested itself in a very still small voice, which found 
the greatest possible difiiculty in making itself 
heard amid the stormy conflict of selfish interest 
and passion with which the assembly was filled. It 
succeeded, however, in the end in gaining the 
victory, and is all the more worthy of the com- 
mendation it has received on account of the tem- 
pestuous violence of the commotion through which 
it led the way to a safe and happy issue at last. 

INJUNCTION OF SECRESY. 

The proceedings of the convention were held 
with closed doors, and an injunction of secrecy was 
laid upon the members, which prohibited them from 
making known anything that took place. This 
was to save the country from the excitement and 



216 THE UNION. 

agitation which might have resulted from the publi- 
cation of the debates from day to daj, and the con- 
sequent arousing throughout the land of the same 
stormy conflict of interest and passion that raged in 
the convention itself. This injunction was never 
formally removed, but the proceedings and debates 
were finally published at different times and in 
various ways, and the subjects of controversy and 
causes of disagreement were made known. The 
principal of them were the following. 

JEALOUSY OF STATE RIGHTS AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY. 

One of the chief obstacles to the success of the 
plan of forming a united government — a difficulty 
which was not only great in itself but was the 
source and origin of a great many difficulties flow- 
ing from it — was the fact that there prevailed among 
all the people a great deal of love for their respec- 
tive States, but very little for their common country. 
The whole country had scarcely yet begun to be 
embodied in their conceptions as a unity. It is 
true the various States had been bound together 
for many years in the pursuit of a common object, 
and had been, to a certain extent, united under one 
organization, namely, the Congress. But the 
great common object had now long since been ac- 
complished, and the Congress had been considered 



THE UNION. 217 

bj the people as scarcely more than a board of 
commissioners, acting for many independent States, 
and not at all as a real and genuine government for 
a united people. 

Thus the love of country and the patriotic feeling 
cherished by the people had everywhere for its 
chief object their own particular State, and they 
were naturally very jealous of its independence, its 
sovereignty and its rights. They were accordingly, 
without perhaps being particularly conscious of it, 
extremely reluctant to diminish the powers and pre- 
rogatives of a government which they had always 
loved as their own, for the benefit of a new and 
larger one, which, being new, they had of course 
not yet learned to love. 

POLITICAL CONSERVATISM. 

They acted under the principle of political con- 
servatism — that is, a strong attachment to things 
as they are and as they have been, simply because 
they so are and so have been — one of the most 
powerful and most beneficent, and at the same time 
one of the blindest and most unreasonable of all the 
impulses of the human mind. 

The tract cL country through which the river 
Connecticut flows in the upper part of its course 
has long been divided into two independent States, 



218 THE UNION. 

Vermont and New Hampshire. The people on 
each side have grown up from infancy with strong 
attachments— those on the east to their native New 
Hampshire, and those on the west to their native 
Vermont. If now for any good reason of public 
policy it should become no matter how desirable to 
unite these two States into one, the people on both 
sides of the river would be unanimous in resisting 
the change, and it would require an enormous pres- 
sure of necessity, or of interest, to overcome the 
universal opposition to it which would be awakened. 
A little farther south the same river flows through 
another portion of the same tract of country, the 
circumstances being in all respects substantially the 
siime, except that here the territory on each side of 
the stream has from time immemorial formed one 
State instead of two. If now it should for any rea- 
son become desirable to separate these two portions 
and make two States, — one on each side of the river 
— the resistance and opposition to the change would 
be just as invincible as in the other case. There is 
no reason whatever why the territory on the north 
should be divided by the river into two States, and 
on the South should form but one, except that it is 
so, and for several generations back it has been so, 
— which is in fact no good reason at all ; but it 
would A'ery likely be actually easier to overrun and 



THE UNION. 219 

subdue by military force the whole country, than to 
make the river a boundary toward the South, or to 
abolish it as a boundary on the North. The people 
ill one quarter would contend to the last extremity 
to prevent, what, under precisely similar circum- 
stances, in respect to all the material aspects of the 
case, those in the other would contend with equal 
vehemence and persistency to retain. 

This principle, though blind, and often extremely 
unreasonable in individual cases, is still, within 
proper limits, beneficent in its general operation. It 
often retards desirable and even necessary changes 
— but then perhaps it more frequently prevents 
useless or dangerous ones, and at any rate it gives 
a certain steadiness to the advance of civilization 
and improvement, which has a vast influence on the 
welfare of the human family. 

Now it was the attachment of the people of the 
country to their respective States, and their unwill- 
ingness to curtail State prestige and power for the 
purpose of creating a new government in respect 
to which all feelings of love, respect and veneration 
were yet to be formed, which constituted the great 
difficulty in the way of organizing the proposed 
union. 



220 THE UNION. 

THE QUESTION OF ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACT. 

Besides this reluctance to furnish the elementa 
of a central power bj concessions from the States, 
there were great differences of opinion among the 
statesmen assembled in respect to the proper princi- 
ples on which government in general ought to rest. 
The most fundamental of these differences related 
to the question between the democratic and the 
aristocratic systems, — that is, whether the system 
should be so arranged that the basis of power should 
rest equally upon the whole mass of the community, 
or should be put in the hands of the better portions 
of it, — the term democracy importing a government 
by the whole people, and aristocracy by the better 
classes, — meaning by those the more intelligent and 
wealthy classes. At the present day it is the almost 
universal opinion that the former is the true princi- 
ple, and that all attempts to confine the governing 
power to the wise and the good, only results in con- 
foring it upon the cunning and the bad, and creates 
a class that exercise their superior wisdom, if 
superior wisdom they have, mainly in securing and 
maintaining for themselves privileges and advantages, 
which are denied to the classes excluded. In the 
times immediately succeeding the revolution, how- 
ever, the contrary opinion prevailed, as it does still 
in England. The general opinion was that in some 



THE UNION 221 

way or other the preponderance of power ought to 
be retained in the hands of the higher classes, and 
endless were the debates on the principles and tests 
bjr which the individuals who constituted the higher 
classes, worthy of being the chief depositories of 
power, should be ascertained. Should a property 
qualification be the test? If so, how rich must a 
man be to be a voter, — or to be a member of Con- 
gress,— or a president. Some thought that it would 
be safe to elect a president who was not worth more 
than a thousand dollars, while others were of opinion 
that not less than two hundred thousand would be 
sufficient to make him really trustworthy. 

Then, too, what kinds of property were to be 
included in making up the qualifications ? Should 
it be real estate alone ? Should slaves be reckoned 
as property for this end, and if so, should they also 
be considered as property in respect to the ratio of 
taxation. 

On these and similar points, and on the infinite 
number of details involved in them there was a vast 
diversity of opinion, ami it seemed for a long time 
impossible that the convention could ever come to a 
CO iimon understanding in respect to them. The 
subject of property qualifications in politics is 
always an exceedingly unmanageable one. 
19* 



222 THE UNION. 

DIVERSITIES OP OPINION IN RESPECT TO DETAILS. 

Besides these differences of opinion on reallj im- 
portant principles, there were endless diversities and 
interminable discussions about details, many of 
which were of very little significance, and were 
scarcely to be reasoned about at all, — such as of 
what precise number should the new senate and 
new house consist?— how often should they be 
elected, and for precisely what term should they 
serve ? — what should be the limit of age to make 
men elegible ? — how should the chief executive 
officer be chosen ? — what should be his title and how 
long should he serve ? On this latter point some 
argued strenuously fo* one year, some for two, 
others for three, four, five and six,^ — each speaker at- 
taching great importance to his own particular view. 
Then how should the president be chosen, — by the 
people, or by the State governments, or by the 
national senate, or by the house of representatives? 
The discussion of these and many other similar 
points of detail consumed a large portion of the 
time of the assembly, without appearing to lead to 
any satisfactory result. 



In regard to the points above mentioned, the 
differences of opinion were those of individuals 



THE UNION. 223 

rather than of parties, as they did not involve the 
interests of any particuhir classes of States, or of 
any of the great industrial avocations of the country. 
There were certain great questions, however, on 
which distinct parties were formed, according as 
the interests of different classes of States, and of 
different sections of the country, were involved in 
them. The two great divisions of this character 
were those arising from the distinction of large and 
small States, and of the products of free and slave 
labor. 

THE LARGE AND SMALL STATES. 

There was then as now a great difference among 
the different States, in respect not only to extent of 
territory, but to the wealth and population of the 
inhabitants. The small States were, of course, 
interested in framing the new government in such a 
way as to sustain as much as possible the equality 
of the States in the administration of it; while the 
large States would desire that the system to be 
adopted should assume a form to give the different 
districts of the country a share in the control, pro- 
portioned in some degree to the number and the 
wealth of the inhabitants. If the people of the 
whole country were blended into one community, 
for the management of affairs of common interest 



224 THE UNION. 

to all, then some of the small States, comprising 
but a limited territory and containing few inhabi- 
tants, would be lost, as it were, in the great mass, 
and their influence would be comparatively insig- 
nificant. On the other liand, if the general people 
were not so blended, but if the distinction of States 
was still kept up in the general government, so as 
to give to all the States an equal voice, which is 
what the smaller States demanded, then thousands 
of people in one part of the country — individually 
as wealthy and as important as any — would have 
less influence in the management of public affairs 
than hundreds might have in another. 

This was a vital question. Indeed the basis of 
the whole structure depended upon the disposal of 
it. It gave rise to earnest and almost perpetual 
conflicts in the convention, and once or twice camo 
near bringing the whole undertaking to an end. 

FREE AND SLAVE STATES. 

A great many exceedingly important questions 
arose out of the distinction of Free and Slave States 
which led to the formation of parties on this subject 
too. One point was the continuance of the impor- 
tation of slaves. The Slave States wished that the 
general government should have no control over this 
subject ; the others thought that, whatever opinion 



THE UNION. 225 

miglit be entertained in respect to continuing to 
hold men already slaves in bondage, the business of 
making new victims, by causing them to be seized 
in their native land and brought across the ocean to 
be sold into eternal bondage in America, was bar- 
barous and cruel, and ought no longer to be 
endured. 

NAVIGATION LAWS. 

The subject of investing the proposed general 
government with power to enact navigation laws — 
by which are meant laws tending to confine the 
commerce of the country to ships built by the 
people of the country — was one on which the Slave 
and Free States took different sides. The people 
of the Slave States did not build ships, and they 
had no particular facilities for building them. Their 
industry was confined to raising certain staple pro- 
ductions to be sent abroad, and they wished the 
privilege of exporting them, and of bringing in 
T3turn cargoes of manufactured goods, by any ships 
that could be obtained most easily, wherever they 
might be built. The Free States, on the other 
hand, were greatly interested in ship building and 
navigation, and they naturally thought it important 
to the country at large that this interest should be 
protected and fostered by proper legislation. 



226; THE UNION. 

WISE COUNSELS PREVAIL IN THE END. 

In the midst of the turmoil and confusion made 
by the earnest and sometimes angry debates to which 
all these various questions gave rise there was, after 
all, as has already been said, a still small voice of 
patriotism, moderation and wisdom, which made 
itself heard, and succeeded, little by little and step 
by step, as tlie debates went on, in so shaping the 
course and action of the body that a fair, equitable 
and in almost every respect excellent system, was 
developed and adopted in tlio end. Several of the 
subjects of disagreement above mentioned were 
settled by compromise. 

THE TWO COMPROMISES. 

There were two principal compromises made. 
The first, — in respect to the small and large States 
— was that the small States should be favored by 
having an equal representation with the large in 
the national senate, and the large ones, — which were 
then chiefly slave States— by having three-fifths of 
the number of their slaves reckoned in determining 
the basis of representation in the lower house. The 
other — in respect to the interests of free and slave 
laboi — was that the new government should have 
power to enact laws favoring northern ships and 
shipping, and that on the other hand the south 



THE UNION. 227 

should not be prevented from importing slaves until 
after the expiration of twenty years. 

GENERAL FEATURES OF THE SYSTEM THAT WAS ADOPTED. 

The plan finally adopted by the Convention to 
be recommended to the States was in its essential 
features as follows. 

1. The people of all the States were to be united 
and blended, in respect to the exercise of certain 
specified governmental functions, into one great 
community, the whole territory to be divided into 
districts containing an equal population, each one 
of which was to send one member as delegate to a 
body to be called the House of Representatives. 

2. Every State as a State was to designate two per- 
sons who were to be members of another body called 
the Senate. These senators, however, were not to be 
considered as embassadors from the States, or dele- 
gates especially representing the State governments 
appointing them, for they had no power to act for 
the State governments, or to bind them in any way ; 
nor after their appointment were they to have any 
official communication with the State governments. 
The States designated tiiem, but after being so des- 
ignated they were each bound in their deliberations 
to act with a view to the interests of the whole 
country. They could not in fact act as in any sense 



228 THE UNION. 

depositories of the political power of the States ap 
pointing them, for as members of the general gov- 
ernment their functions were confined entirely to a 
class of subjects over which the States, as States, 
were expressly to resign all jurisdiction and control. 

3. The third and the great distinguishing feature 
of the new system, as compared with that of the 
old Confederation was the establishment of an ex- 
ecutive department with the powers conferred upon 
it to carry into effect all the measures and enactments 
of the general government, by having liberty to 
enter everywhere upon the territory of the several 
States, to purchase and hold land there for forts, 
arsenals, navy-yards, custom houses and all other 
necessary national purposes, to establish its own 
courts, and appoint its own oflScers, and other func- 
tionaries there, and thus to execute at once by its 
own direct agency, its own measures, and to supply 
itself with all the necessary means, both of men 
and money, for carrying its measures into effect by 
its power over the individual citizen. 

The head of this executive system was to be 
styled the President of the United States, and all 
the necessary machinery was provided for of custom 
houses, and custom house officers to collect duties, 
and assessors and collectors of taxes, and courts, 
and sheriffs, and commissioners, to execute the laws, 



THE UNION. 229 

and everything else to mable the new government 
to act itself^ at once, by its own machinery, instead 
of calling upon the several States by requisitions 
to act for them. 

SURRENDER OF POWEE BY THE STATES. 

By accepting and ratifying the proposed consti- 
tution, the States were to surrender entirely and 
forever, all that portion of the power that had pre- 
viously belonged to them as sovereignties, which 
pertained to certain subjects of general interest 
therein referred to the general government, in order 
that in respect to these subjects the people of the 
whole land might exercise sovereignty in respect to 
those subjects, as oae people. These subjects were. 

All the relations of the country with foreign 
nations, including the Indian tribes, whether friendly 
relations as those of commerce in time of peace, or 
hostile in time of war. 

The coining and regulation of the national money. 

The postal system. 

THE JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT 

The plan of the general government was made 
complete by the establishment of a complete system 
of national courts to try and decide all questions 
arising between diflferent States, or individuals of 

20 



280 THE UNION. 

different States, and to punish all offences against 
the national laws. This system consisted of dis- 
trict courts for the various portions of the country, 
and a supreme court to sit as a court of appeal at 
the seat of government. 

THE PLAN SUBinTTED TO THE CONFEDERATE C0>fGRES3 

As the Confederate Congress, or the Continental 
Congress as it was still sometimes called, had con- 
tinued to exist, and perform some feeble functions, 
it was deemed proper to transmit the report of the 
Convention to them, to be by them communicated 
to the several States. The Congress was at that 
time in session at New York. There was some 
debate in that body on the question whether to 
transmit the document to the States or not, but it 
was finally decided to do so, and copies of the pro^ 
posed constitution were sent to the governments of 
all the States, with a view to calling conventions 
of the people to consider the question of ratifying 
it This was late in September, 1787. 

THE RATIFICATION. 

The question of the ratification of the new con- 
stitution was to be passed upon in conventions of 
the people chosen for the purpose, because the pro- 
posed organization was considered not as a compact 



THE UNION. 231 

between the State governments but a new general 
government formed by the people. Conventions 
were accordingly chosen in nearly all the States, 
and long debates and discussions ensued in each of 
them. It was not till three months after the pro- 
j)Osed form was laid before the country that the first 
State population ratified it, and that was Delaware. 
The decision of the rest came in very slowly. 
There was great difierence of opinion — both on 
principles and on details — which led to much dis- 
puting and great delay. As one after another of 
the conventions came to a decision, some voted to 
r;itify conditionally ; others ratified absolutely, but 
recommended modifications of the plan. It was 
nearly a year before the ratifications of ten States 
were secured. This number was thought to be 
sufficient to justify putting the new government 
into operation, and measures were accordingly 
adopted for that purpose. The other three States 
came in afterward. North Carolina and Rhode 
Island were the two last, and they did not come in 
until after the first President had been chosen. 

ELECTION OP PRESIDENT. 

Without waiting any longer for these last doubt- 
ing and hesitating parties to come to a conclusion, 
the people of the country prepared to put the new 



232 THE UNION. 

system into operation, leaving the doabters to join 
them afterward or not as they chose. The first 
step was the election of the President, on whom 
would devolve the duty of organizing the new 
government and setting the machinery in motion. 

It seemed to be assumed as a matter of course by 
the whole country that Washington was the person 
on whom this duty would devolve. The election 
was, however, regularly held, according to the pre- 
scribed form, and Washington was unanimously 
chosen. 



CHAPTER IX. 

INAUGURATION OF THE GOVEENMENT, 

DEPARTURE OF WASHINGTON FROM MOUNT VERNON. 

Washington was officially notified of his elec- 
tion as the first President of the United States on 
the 14th of April, 1789. His preparations for 
departure from home were already in an advanced 
state of forwardness, as the certainty of the fact of 
his election had been known for some time, — the 
notification being only an official formality. Two 
days after it was received he set out on his journey 
to New York, which was to be for a time the seat 
of the government about to be organized. 

ESCORT OF NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS. 

After bidding farewell to his family and people, 
Washington commenced his journey, but was met 
at a short distance from the boundaries of the estate 
by a cavalcade of gentlemen of Virginia, his neigh- 
bors and friends, who had made arrangements to 
assemble in the neighborhood and escort him as far 



234 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

as Alexandria, which was about ten miles up the 
river from Mount Vernon, and constituted the first 
stage of the journey. 

This cavalcade was ready, and advanced to meet 
the President as he left the confines of the estate. 
One of the party in receiving him made a brief 
address, in which, after alluding to the great services 
which he had rendered the country, and through 
which he had become the object of universal respect 
and veneration, proceeded to speak more particu- 
larly of the benefits which he had been the means 
of conferring upon his neighbors and friends in the 
district where he resided, the useful public works 
which he had promoted, and the various enterprises 
for promoting the welfare and prosperity of the 
region which had been sustained and carried to a 
successful issue through his exertion and influence. 
They mourned the loss which they were to sustain 
by his being again about to leave them ; but his 
country called him, they said, and they wished him 
to go. Finally they bade him farewell, commending 
him, during his absence, to the protection of heaven 
in the following words : 

" To that Being who maketh and unmnketh at 
His will we commend you, and after the accomplish- 
ment of the arduous business to which you are 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 235 

called, may He restore to us again the best of men 
and the most beloved fellow-citizen," 

WASHINGTON'S REPLY. 

Washington was much moved by this manifesta- 
tion of affectionate and respectful regard from the 
people of the country around. To their address he 
made the following reply : 

" Gentlemen : — Although I ought not to con- 
ceal, yet I cannot describe the painful emotions 
which I felt in being called upon to determine 
whether I would accept or refuse the presidency of 
the United States. The unanimity in the choice, 
the opinion of my friends communicated from dif- 
ferent parts of Europe, as well as America, and an 
ardent desire on my own part to be instrumental in 
cementing the good will of my countrymen toward 
each other, have induced an acceptance. Those who 
know me best, and you my fellow-citizens are from 
your situation in that number, know better than 
any others, my love of retirement is so great that 
no earthly consideration short of a conviction of 
duty could have prevailed upon me to depart from 
my resolution never more to take any share in 
transactions of a public nature : for at my age, and 
in uiy circumstances, what prospects or advantages 



286 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

could I propose to myself from embarking again 
on the tempestuous and uncertain ocean of public 
life? 

" I do not feel myself under the necessity of 
making public declarations in order to convince you, 
gentlemen, of my attachment to yourselves and re- 
gard for your interests. The whole tenor of my 
life has been open to your inspection, and my past 
actions, rather than my present declarations, must 
be the pledge of my future conduct. 

" In the mean time, I thank you most sincerely 
for the expressions of kindness contained in your 
valedictory address. It is true, that just after hav- 
ing bid adieu to my domestic connections, this tender 
proof of your friendship is but too well calculated 
still further to awaken my sensibility, and increase 
my regret at parting from the enjoyments of private 
life. 

" All that now remains for me is to commit my- 
self and you to the protection of that benfiecent 
Being, who, on a former occasion, happily brought 
us together after a long and distressing separation. 
Perhaps the same gracious Providence will again 
indulge me. Unutterable sensations must, then, be 
left to more expressive silence, while from an aching 
heart I bid you all, my affectionate friends and kind 
neighbors, farewell !" 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 237 

PROGRESS OF THE JOURNEY. 

When the party arrived at Alexandria, Wash- 
ington found the inhabitants assembled to receive 
him with public honors. There was also another 
escort formed there, ready to conduct him on the 
next stage of his journey, which was to George- 
town. Thus he went on with escort after escort. 
When he reached the Schuylkill just before entering 
Philadelphia, he found the bridge across that river 
decorated with a triumphal arch of laurel, with 
laurel shrubbery at eaoh end of it. As Washing- 
ton passed under the arch, a civic crown, adorned 
with sprigs of laurel, was let down and placed upon 
his head by a boy concealed from view. 

On the farther side of the bridge Washington 
found the road lined with crowds of people, who 
rent the air with acclamations as he passed along. 
Thus advancing, conducted by the authorities of the 
city, and followed by his escort — he entered the 
town, and proceeded to Independence Hall, the 
edifice in which the Continental Congress had held 
its sessions when the Declaration of Independence 
was passed, and where the document was signed. 
In this hall a grand reception had been arranged 
for him, and here he was welcomed anew, with 
addresses and congratulations by the public author- 
ities and their friends, and by shouts of acclamation 



238 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

from the vast crowds of people assembled in the 
streets around. 

UNIVERSAL ENTHUSIASM. 

The excitement and enthusiasm of the people 
seemed to increase as the journey went on. After 
leaving Philadelphia his course lay up the Delaware 
River. As he passed along the people everywhere 
gathered to see him. Every town appointed dele- 
gates of its citizens to go out to meet him as he 
approached. Entertainments were given in honor 
of him and addresses made, expressive of congrat- 
ulation and joy. Military companies were called 
out to escort him from place to place, and at all the 
principal points his arrival was announced by the 
ringing of bells and the firing of cannon. In a 
word his progress through the country was marked 
by the applause and the rejoicings of the whole 
population. 

CELEBRATION AT THE BRIDGE AT TRENTON. 

One of the principal scenes of this grand ovation 
was enacted at Trenton, where Washington, about 
twelve years before, performed his grand exploit of 
passing his army across the Delaware in the night, 
in boats, among the floating ice, and in a snow- 
storm, and surprising and capturing a large British 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 239 

force in the town, thus gaining one of the most 
important victories of the war. This was accord- 
ingly thought to be a fitting place for some special 
celebration. 

The arrangements were made, and the ceremonies 
were conducted by the ladies of Trenton. They 
caused a triumphal arch to be erected upon a bridge 
across a small stream near the town, which had 
been the scene of some of the most important 
operations connected with the battle, and adorned it 
with wreaths of laurel and with a profusion of 
flowers — some gathered from the fields and forests 
and some from the gardens and conservatories in 
the town. Upon the crown of the arch was an 
inscription formed ingeniously of evergreen leaves 
and flowers, and containing the words : 

geamlier 26tli, 1776. 

This was the date of the battle. On the sweep 
of the arch below were the words, also formed of 
leaves and flowers : 

Slje ^cfenbcr of tlje Potlrevs bill be tlje protector of 

Washington was received at this arch, and 
welcomed on his passage through it, by a large 
procession of the ladies of Trenton. They arranged 



240 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

themselves, as he approached, on each side of the 
road, the children on one side dressed in white, and 
each bearing a basket of flowers, and the young 
ladies upon the other, dressed in the same manner ; 
while the mothers stood in a row on each side behind. 
After Washington had passed through the arch 
he stopped to listen to a song of welcome, in two 
stanzas, which was to be sung bj a choir of singers 
stationed near. These stanzas were written for the 
occasion, and the idea which they conveyed was 
that of the striking contrast between the circum- 
stances of his crossing the river in the face of des- 
perate and implacable enemies twelve years before, 
and those which marked his transition now, welcomed 
by the grateful and joyful acclamations of friends^ 
who owed to him their own personal protection and 
the salvation of their country. The words were 
as follows : 

Welcome, mighty chiefj once more I 
"Welcome lo Ibis grateful shore I 
' Now no mercenary foe 

Aims again the fatal blow — 
Aims at thee the fatal blow. 

Virgins fair and matrons grave, 
Whom tliy conquering arm did save, 
Build lor thee triumphal bowers. 
Strew, ye fair, his way with flowers I 
Strew your hero's way with flowera? 



'V--': ?"^''""!^ "'. 



^ (*^ 29 y^ 



HI OV 



S^J 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 243 

As these last words were sung the children 
strewed the road with flowers from their baskets, 
and Washington and his suite passed on into the 
town — the incessant ringing of bells and booming 
of guns adding excitement to the scene. 

ARRIVAL AT NEW YORK. 

In due time Washington arrived at his place of 
destination, New York, where, on account of cir- 
cumstances which cannot be here particularly 
detailed, it had been decided that the new govern- 
ment should be organized and set in operation. 

ENTRANCE INTO NEW YORK. 

The land journey of the party ended at Eliza- 
bethtown. where at Elizabethtown Point, on the 
Passaic River, an elegant barge had been provided 
to convey the President and his suite to the city. 
He had requested that his entrance to the city 
might be made in a private manner and without 
parade ; but the people would not consent to this, 
and arrangements had accordingly been made for 
an imposing aquatic procession to conduct the party 
from the place of embarkation at Elizabethtown 
Point along the channel between Staten Island and 
the mainland, ani thence up the harbor to the city. 



244 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

THE BARGES. 

The barge in which Washington himself was to 
be conveyed was constructed expressly for the occa- 
sion. It was manned by thirteen chief pilots, 
masters of pilot vessels belonging to the harbor. 
They were dressed in white, and were commanded 
by a naval officer of high rank. This barge was 
attended and followed by other barges, all gaily 
decorated with flags and banners. These vessels 
conveyed the heads of the departments who had 
held office under the confederation, and who had 
not yet been replaced, and other official personages 
of high rank, together with several distinguished 
citizens of New York who had been honored with 
invitations to join in the procession. They advanced 
in regular order, and as they proceeded along the 
shores of Staten Island and turned to go up the 
harbor they were met by great numbers of other 
boats coming from town, all likewise gaily decorated. 
The boats, as they met the approaching procession, 
turned aside and waited on their oars for the barges 
to pass, and then fell into the rear, thus forming, 
as the fleet advanced toward the city, a long and 
imposing procession. 

One of the boats which closely accompanied the 
President's barge, contained an instrumental band 
playing marches, military airs, and other exciting 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 245 

music on the way ; and when the head of the col' 
umn drew near the landing place it passed by two 
vessels containing a party of ladies and gentlemen, 
who sang congratulatory odes as Washington's 
barge approached. 

The various vessels lying at anchor in the harbor, 
were all decorated with flags, and the ships of war 
of difiFerent nations that chanced to be present at 
the time, manned their yards, and saluted the 
passing procession by the lowering of their colors, 
the huzzas of the seamen, and the thundering of the 
guns. 

THE LANDING. 

Preparations for the landing had been made at 
Murray's wharf, at the foot of Murray street. The 
wharf itself and all the streets adjoining it, were 
thronged with spectators who rent the air with their 
acclamations, the sounds of which were mingled 
with the ringing of bells from all the steeples, and 
the booming of guns. On landing from the barge, 
Washington was received by Governor Clinton, the 
governor of New York, General Knox, one of his 
former companions in arms, and many other oflScers^ 
both civil and military, and other persons of dis- 
tinction. A carriage had also been provided for 
him to convey him through the streets, with a 

21* 



246 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

carpet laid down for him to walk upon, in order to 
reach it. An officer advanced also, with the military 
salute, and announced himself as the commander 
of the life-guard which had been provided to escort 
the president to the governor's house, and asked 
for his excellency's orders. 

Washington was embarrassed rather than gratified 
by these marks of homage, such as in Europe would 
be accorded to a sovereign prince at a coronation. 
He replied to the officer of the guard that he might 
proceed with his duty according to the arrangements 
which had been made by the committee, and he de- 
clined the carriage, saying it would be more agreea- 
ble to him to walk. 

THE PROCESSION TO THE GOVERNOR'S. 

The guard, together with the various officers and 
persons of distinction who had come to accompany 
Washington to his lodgings, formed a long military 
and civic procession, under the escort of which the 
president at once proceeded through the streets 
toward the house of the governor. The streets were 
so thronged that it was with difficulty that the pro- 
cession could make its way. Arches had been erected 
here and there, and every house was decorated with 
flags, banners, garlands of flowers, and inscriptions 
of congratulation and welcome. 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 247 

The president proceeded in this manner to the 
house of the governor, where he was to be enter- 
tained. He met at the dinner table a number of 
civil and military officers and other persons of dis- 
tinction, and in the evening the city was given up 
to illuminations and fireworks, and to other demon- 
strations of festivity and joy. 

THE INAUGURATION. 

The formal induction of the president into office, 
took place on the 30th of April, about a week after 
his arrival in the city. The ceremony was per- 
formed at Federal Hall, so called, a public edifice 
wnich stood in Wall Street, on the site of the present 
custom house. There was a wide balcony upon 
the front of the building which extended over the 
sidewalk, and afforded a fine position for administer- 
in<T the oath in view of an immense concourse of 
spectators that assembled in the street below, and 
at the windows and upon the roofs of the sur- 
rounding buildings. There was a roof over the 
balcony, with tall columns supporting it, leaving 
the balcony itself, which was quite large, almost 
entirely open above the balustrade to public view. 

In the centre of the balcony had been placed a 
table covered with a crimson cloth, and upon the 
table a magnificently bound bible, intended to be 



248 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

used for administering the oath, reposed upon a 
crimson velvet cushion. One or two arm chairs 
were placed nenr the table. 

As soon as Washington and those accompanying 
him who were to take part in the ceremony appeared 
upon the balcony, they were received by long and 
loud acclamations from the immense throng that 
had assembled. Washington was attired in the 
court dress of those times, with knee buckles, and 
long silk stockings, shoes with silver clasps, a 
sword, and powdered hair dressed with a silken bag 
behind. 

ADMINISTRATION OF THE OATH. 

After advancing to the front of the balcony to 
receive and acknowledge the congratulations of the 
people, Washington stepped back and took his seat 
in one of the chairs near the table until silence 
should be restored. When all was still he arose 
again and advanced to the front of the balcony ; 
accompanied by John Adams, the vice-president 
elect, on one side, and by Robert R. Livingston, 
the chancellor of the State of New York, who was 
to administer the oath, on the other. Several other 
gentlemen of distinction stood in the rear, among 
whom were Roger Sherman, Alexander Hamilton, 
General Knox, Baron Steuben and others. 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 249 

The secretary of state, Mr. Otis, raised the 
bible fi-om the table on its velvet cushion, and held 
it in a convenient position for the performance of 
the ceremony. The chancellor then read the oath, 
enunciating the words in a very slow, distinct and 
audible manner, while the vast throngs in the streets, 
and at the windows, on the roofs and in the bal- 
conies of the houses around, listened in solemn 
silence. 

Washington uttered his response in the same dis- 
tinct and emphatic manner, and then reverently 
kissed the book which the secretary held before 
him for that purpose. 

REJOICINGS. 

As soon as this ceremony was concluded the 
chancellor came forward to the front of the balcony, 
and waving his hand to the vast audience, he called 
out with a loud voice, 

" Long live Gr3orge Washmgton, President of the 
United States." 

This announcement that the ceremony of taking 
the oath was completed, was received with one loud 
and universal burst of acclamation from the assem- 
bled multitude. At the same moment a flag; waa 
run up the staff upon the cupola of the building, aa 



250 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

a signal to the men stationed at the guns on the bat- 
tery, and the air was instantly filled with the roar 
of artillery, and with the ringing of the bells of 
every steeple and tower in the city. 

CONCLUDING CEREMONIES. 

Washington then, after bowing once more to the 
assembled multitude, retired from the balcony, and 
proceeding to the principal legislative hall within 
the building, he delivered his inaugural address, in 
the hearing of a large audience, consisting of the 
members of Congress and other persons of distinc- 
tion. On the conclusion of the address, the whole 
legislative body, with the executive officers of the 
government and many invited guests, proceeded in 
order to St. Paul's church, where the ceremonies 
of the day were closed by appropriate religious 
services. 

INFLUENTIAL MEN ASSOCIATED WITH WASHINGTON IN THE 
GOVERNMENT. 

Among the most prominent men who were polit- 
ically associated with Washington in the early ad- 
ministration of public affairs, and whose influence 
was most decided in first shaping the institutions 
and directing the policy of the government, perhaps 
the most conspicuous were John Adams, Alexander 



INAT] DURATION OF TUE GOVERNMENT. 251 

Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison 
These persons had all taken a very active and 
prominent part in forming the federal constitution, 
and also, bj their commanding influence among the 
people of the country, in promoting the ratification 
of it by the States ; and they were now severally 
appointed by the president, or had been elected by 
the people, to occupy prominent positions in the 
organization and administration of the new govern- 
ment. 

JOHN ADAMS. 

John Adams was the vice president, and by vir- 
tue of this office, the president of the senate. He 
was a citizen of Boston, and the leading represen- 
tative of the New England States in the counsels 
of the general government. He had occupied this 
position in fact during the whole period- of the rev- 
olutionary war, having been from the beginning a 
very prominent and leading member of the Conti- 
nental Congress. Some one on examining the 
records of the proceedings of that body, found that 
Adams had been a member of ninety committees, 
and chairman of twenty-five of them. On all the 
questions that arose during the whole period pre- 
vious to the commencement of the presidency of 
Washington — including the conduct of the war, the 



252 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

management of negotiations with foreign powere at 
the conclusion of it, and the forming of the federal 
constitution, his agency was very active, and was 
of the most important character. He was appointed 
as one of the commissioners to the court of Ver- 
sailles to negotiate the treaty of peace, and during 
his residence abroad he acquired a distinguished 
reputation among the European courts, Avhere hia 
influence in promoting the interests of the American 
government was of the most marked and striking 
character. 

He was now between fifty and sixty years of age, 
and his ripe experience, his intimate knowledge of 
public affairs, the weight and dignity of his char- 
acter, his great ascendancy over the minds of hia 
countrymen, especially of the people of New Eng- 
land, and his exalted position as president of the 
senate, combined to render him a very safe and able 
counsellor, and Washington relied greatly upon 
his judgment in the decision of every important 
question. 

ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 

Hamilton was about twenty years younger than 
Adams, being at the time of the inauguration of 
President Washington about thirty-two years of 
age. Young as he was, however, he was already 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 253 

greatly distinguished. He entered the army of the 
revolution from Columbia College, New York, when 
he was about nineteen years of age, and there soon 
attracted the attention of General Washington, who 
appointed him one of his aids, and he remained 
attached personally to the general during the whole 
period of the war. 

At the close of the war he studied law and was 
admitted to the bar. He immediately began to 
acquire an eminent position, but was soon diverted 
from his profession by being elected a member of 
Congress under the old confederation, and from 
that time he devoted himself entirely to political 
life. He very soon acquired great distinction in 
Congress, and he took a very active part in the 
formation of the federal constitution, and subse- 
quently exerted a great influence in securing the 
adoption of it through the eflforts which he made to 
explain the principles of the system to the people at 
large, and the eloquence and ability with which he 
advocated them 

THE FEDERALIST. 

The chief vehicle through which Hamilton and 
those acting with him conveyed their explanations 
and reasoning, in respect to the federal constitution, 
to the public was a series of periodical essays which 



254 INAUGURATION OP THE GOVERNMENT. 

they published under the name of the Federalist. 
Hamilton was himself the principal writer of the 
articles of this work, though he was greatly aided 
by Madison and by some other powerful coadjutors. 
The Federalist exerted great influence at the time 
in clearly explaining to the people of the country 
the principles of the new constitution, and in 
securing its adoption; and the work has since 
assumed the character of a standard authority of 
the highest value, as an authentic contemporaneous 
exposition of the views and intentions of the founders 
of the constitution, and of the proper interpretation 
to be put upon the language of the document in all 
cases of doubt or disagreement that may arise in the 
practical working of the system. 

Hamilton's public careeb. 

Hamilton was appointed by the president to the 
office of secretary of the treasury ; for, in addition 
to the other evidences of superior statesmanship 
which his writings had evmced, he had shown him- 
self extremely well informed on questions of finance. 
Washington, in addition to the confidence which he 
had in his ability as a statesman, felt a strong per- 
sonal afiection for him as a man. This affection had 
grown up in the course of the years of danger, 
anxiety and suffering which they had spent together 



INAUGUUATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 255 

during the war. He consequently regarded liim not 
only as an able coadjutor in his government, but 
also as a dear and highly valued personal friend. 

Hamilton managed the affairs of his department 
with great ability while he remained in office. He 
was subsequently called to render public services of 
the highest importance in various capacities, both 
civil and military, and finally became in the minds 
of his countrymen an object of universal and very 
exalted estimation. 

HIS UNTIMELY END. 

At length, when he was nearly fifty years of age, 
he became involved in some difficulty with Aaron 
Burr, arising from a rude demand made upon him 
by Burr to explain or apologize for something which 
he had said in his political writings. Hamilton 
refused to do either, and Burr challenged him to a 
duel. 

The duel was fought at Hoboken, near New 
York, with much formality and ceremony, and 
Hamilton was slain. The excitement of the public 
mind awakened by this duel, and the shock univer- 
sally produced by the fatal termination of it, moved 
the people of this country more deeply than any 
Other event of the kind that has ever occurred. 



256 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION OF POLITICS. 

Although the leading statesmen of the country 
had finally agreed to support the frame of govern- 
ment established bj the federal constitution, it was, 
after all, only by the spirit of compromise and of 
mutual concession that they did so ; for, as has 
already been shown in a previous chnpter, there was 
a serious difference of opinion among them in respect 
to the fundamental principles on which govern- 
ment, in modern civilized societies, ought to be 
founded. The question which separated them was 
the one which divides public opinion at the present 
day in all enlightened nations, and constitutes the 
most general and most important line of demarca- 
tion between the great political parties that are con- 
tending against each other in every free community. 
The question is this : 

Ought governmental institutions to be so framed 
as to retain political power as much as possible in 
the hands of the wise and the good, or so as to 
diffuse it equally throughout the whole community, 
and thus to give every man that is subject to it a 
just and equal share. 

In all the governments of Europe the former haa 
always been the principle acted upon — the wise and 
good being understood to mean practically the rich 
and powerful. The struggle, however, between tho 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 257 

two sets of opinions has been going on there ver^ 
vigorously for many years, — one party, calling 
themselves conservatives, making every effort to 
retain political power and influence in the hands of 
the smallest possible number — and they of the 
upper classes— on the theory that they are more 
trustworthy and better informed than the mass of 
the community, and may accordingly be taken for 
the wise and the good ; and the otlier endeavoring 
to diffuse and extend the elements of power, so as 
to admit larger and larger portions of the popula- 
tion to the exercise of their proper portion of it. 

OPINIONS OP ADAMS AND HAMILTON. 

This same division of political opinions existed 
in America, though in a somewhat mitigated form ; 
one class being inclined to bring the mass of the 
people much more fully, completely and directly 
into the possession of political power than the other. 
Adams and Hamilton were representatives and 
leaders of the first class, Jefferson and Madison of 
the second. 

It is true that Adams and Hamilton, and the 
men with whom they acted, were by no means in 
favor of a legal and formal exclusion of the humbler 
classes from all participation in government, as in 
England; but while they were willing to give all a 



258 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

vote in th3 first instance, and thus to make the 
government a popular one in theory, still they were 
inclined to favor such arrangements, in regulating 
tlie actual working of the machine, as should prac- 
tically keep the control in the hands of the few. 

A MONARCHY IMPOSSIBLE. 

Indeed Hamilton, it is said, would have been 
inclined to favor a monarchy as the best form of 
government for America, if a monarchy had been 
possible. But he knew well that this was out of 
the question, for the reason that it is impossible to 
improvise a king. It takes many centuries to make 
a king. It is true that a conqueror may place one 
of his generals, or a congress of sovereigns some 
younger son of a royal family, in a gilded chair on 
a dais, in the capital of some subjugated country, 
and call him a king ; but he is not really a king, 
nor can they possibly make him one. He is a chief 
magistrate created by appointment or election, hold- 
ing his office only for a brief term, and liable to be 
suddenly ejected from it at any time for real or 
supposed misbehavior. 

The brothers and son of the first Napoleon were 
such kings as these. So were, or are, Louis Phil- 
lippe, Otho and George of Greece, and Leopold of 
Belgium ; and we may one of these days have such 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 259 

a Idno; made for Canada. But in form in f; our 
national constitution even those who were inclined 
to favor monarchical institutions as the best, pro- 
vided there existed in the state a rojal family which 
had been spreading its roots in the history and 
heart of the nation for so many centuries that no 
trace or tradition lemained of the origin of its 
power, knew perfectly well that where no such 
dynasty existed it would be impossible to supply its 
place by any artificial process of appointment or 
election. 

OPINIONS OF JEFFERSON AND MADISON. 

Jefferson and Madison on the other hand were 
utterly opposed to aristocratic or monarchical systems 
of government on principle. They were the leaders 
and representatives of a class of statesmen, wliose 
policy was to lay the foundations of government on 
a very broad basis — as broad as humanity itself. 
They considered this the most just and at the same 
time the safest system, and the best for all con- 
cerned. The}'' wished to carry down the founda- 
i'.ons of political power until it should come to a 
Gearing, and find a support, in the regularly ex- 
pressed will of every man who was to be subject to 
its jurisdiction, and to bring the action of the gov- 
ernment as directly, as closely, and as invariably aa 



260 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

possible under the control of the general populai 
voice. They thought it the best policy to give up 
all iiope of making the government better than the 
majority of the people ; — to allow the popular de- 
termination — as ascertained by a fair and formal 
expression of the will of all classes of the com- 
munity — to be carried into effect, whether right or 
wrong in the opinion of individuals ; — and if evils 
should exist, to aim at rectifying them by changing 
the national will, and not thwarting it or control- 
ling it by any higher authority constituted for thia 
purpose. 

EQUAL POLITICAL RIGHTS FOR ALL ME^f THE ONLY SAFE POLICY 
OF GOVERNMENT. 

The principle of giving every man a voice in the 
ultimate control and management of public affairs, 
constitutes altogether the most stable and secure 
foundation for government, for under such a system 
every man, knowing that he has his fair share of 
influence in determining the course of public policy, 
feels a personal interest in the government, and a 
wish that it should be sustained ; whereas, under 
the other system there is always a large class of 
men, who, having no voice in the government, must 
bo held in subjection by it. This requires the 
organization and maintenance of a large and per- 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 2G1 

tnanent military force, and even then the country 
■which holds a large portion of the population in this 
condition is continually exposed to the outbreak ol 
riots, insurrections and revolutions. 

For the first fifty years of the existence of this 
governmeut, during which universal suffrage as the 
foundation of government, and a control, as direct, 
immediate and complete as possible, over all the 
measures of the government by the will of the 
whole people, prevailed, not one tenth part of the 
military force, in proportion to the population, was 
required to maintain the authority of the govern- 
ment, that has been deemed necessary in France 
and England, and in all other raonnrchical coun- 
tries during the same period. 

And when at last our great rebellion came, it 
had its origin solely in causes arising from the fact 
that in a large section of the country nearly hali 
the population were deprived of all personal and 
political rights; so that our own terrible troubles, 
when they finally came, arose solely from our re- 
fusal to carry out fully the principles of the system. 

THE ONLY JUST AS WELL AS THE ONLY SAFE POLICY. 

Jefferson considered the system of equal rights 
for all men as not only the snfest, but as the only 
just system. A man born in any country had 



262 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

naturally an equal right with all the rest to a voica 
in determining the policy on which hi^ life and hia 
welfare, and those of his wife and children depended. 
For one portion of the community to exclude the 
rest from all share in the control, on the ground 
that they themselves were the best judges of the 
proper measures to be adopted to promote the gen- 
eral welfare, seemed to him to be the perpetration 
of a great injustice and wrong. 

The friends of equal rights in those days did not 
consider ignorance and poverty as constituting a 
just ground for depriving a man of his voice in the 
management of public affairs. There are very few 
men in any community who are competent to form 
an enlightened opinion in respect to the details of 
legislation, — that is, there are in any community 
very few statesmen. But a man in exercising the 
right of suffrage does not assume to judge of the 
details of measures for promoting the public good, 
but only to decide to what man or party of men he 
will prefer to commit the keeping of his interests 
and those of his class, in the determination of those 
measures. And he has a right to that privilege. 

THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE THE SAFEGUARD OF THE POOR. 

Indeed the poorer, more ignorant, and more mis- 
erable a man is, the more indispensable to him ia 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 263 

his vote. It is his protection. It may constitute 
almost his chief claim to the consideration of those 
around him. A man of wealth and high standing 
has so many other modes of exerting an influence 
on public opinion, and on th« policy and measures 
of government, that his mere vote is of compara- 
tively little consequence to him. Deprive a mil- 
lionaire of his vote and you diminish his political 
influence in an almost inappreciable degree. But 
a poor man's vote is politically his all. If he and 
those situated as he is are deprived of it, they lose 
all the means of protection they have against the 
enactment of laws pressing heavily upon them, and 
tending to fix and perpetuate their degradation and 
poverty. 

POSITION OP JEFFERSON IN WASHINGTON'S GOVERNMENT. 

Jefierson was appointed by Washington to the 
office of secretary of state under the new govern- 
ment. Although still young he had occupied a very 
prominent position before the public for many years. 
lie was a Virginian, and had exerted a great influ- 
ence in shaping the institutions and policy of his 
State. He was a member of the Continental Con- 
gress and took a very prominent part in the delib- 
erations of that body. It was by him that the firat 
draft of the Declaration of Independence was made. 



264 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

Some time after the close of the war be was sent to 
France as United States Minister at the French 
court, and it was from this position that he was called 
by Washington to a seat in his cabinet as secretary 
of state. In this office he had charge of all the 
foreign relations of the government, and all its 
intercourse with European powers. 

During his whole political career Jefferson was 
uniform and consistent in his efforts so to shape the 
fundamental institutions, both of his State and of 
the nation, as to secure to every man an equal voice 
in the general direction of public afiairs, and equal 
rights in every respect before the law. He did all 
in his power to promote the abolition of slavery in 
Virginia, — sind finding this impracticable, he waa 
the means of securing the adoption of effectual 
measures for preventing the extension of the system 
into the unsettled territories then within the national 
jurisdiction. If the policy which he so earnestly re- 
commended had been fully adopted by his country- 
men, the nntion would have been saved the sacrifice of 
a million of lives, and of five thousand millions of 
dolLirs in property, which the consent that it gave to 
the depriving of a large fraction of the population 
of all personal and civil rights, was destined in the 
end to cost it. 



INAUGURATION OF IHB GOVERNMENT 265 

JAMES MADISON. 

Madison was not one of Washington's cabinet 
officers. He was a member of the House of Rep- 
ri'sentatives, and his ability as a speaker, conjoined 
with the great reputation which he had acquired 
throughout the country by the prominent part which 
lie had taken in framing the federal constitution, and 
in promoting the adoption of it by the States, and 
by the people, soon gave him a commanding influ- 
ence in that body. Washington too, felt a great 
confidence in his political judgment and experience, 
and often consulted him on the proper course to be 
pursued in the various important emergencies occur- 
riuir. His name has thus become associated with 
those of Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson and others, 
as among the leading men under whose guidance 
and direction the first movements of the vast system 
of government established by the constitution of 
the United States were made. 

INCIPIENT DIVERGENCY OP POLITICAL OPINION. 

It has already been said that Adams and Hamil- 
ton, and a large class of politicians sympathizing 
with them, were inclined to favor what is called a 
strong government, that is, one in which the polit- 
ical institutions and usages should be so framed as 
to keep the control as much as possible in the handa 

23 



2(jQ INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

of the more respectable, more wealthy and bettei 
educated classes of society, thus producing a con- 
centrated and in some respects an insulated author- 
ity, while Jefferson and Madison, representing 
another class, were more inclined to diffuse and dis- 
tribute the elements of power, in order to give it 
the widest possible basis, and to bring as directly as 
possible within the reach of every man his fair por- 
tion of control over the measures and the policy, 
which, affecting the general welfare, were of com- 
mon interest to all. These diversities of opinion, 
though they existed from the beginning, did not 
immediately manifest themselves decidedly in such 
a way as to produce divided councils ; though a 
divergence soon commenced which rapidly widened 
and extended, until the foundation was laid for the 
organization of two great parties, between which a 
continued struggle was carried ou with great earn- 
estness and vigor for many years. 

THE FIRST TEST QUESTION. 

The first occasion on which these different theories 
of government were brought to bear upon a prac- 
tical question was, as it would seem, not a very 
serious one. It related only to the forms and cere- 
monies, and points of etiquette, wiiich should ba 
observed by the new government, and especially by 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 267 

the president, in his official intercourse with Con- 
gress and with the people, and also with the repre- 
sentatives of foreign powers. The president was 
aware that there was a certain importance to be 
attached to the beginning that he should make in 
these respects, inasmuch as the practices which be 
should observe would be very likely to become pre- 
cedents for succeeding administrations. 

He accordingly addressed formal inquiries to 
several of the leading men around him, requesting 
their views on these points. 

The answers to these queries revealed quite an 
important difference of opinion among the states- 
men consulted, in respect to the proper system of 
forms and usages to be observed in the administra- 
tion of a republican government. Those who, in 
their general views, were inclined to favor a strong 
government and a restricted basis of power, were 
disposed to recommend more formality and cere- 
mony and parade than those who were more demo- 
cratic in their views thought desirable. 

ADAMS'S OPINION. 

John Adams, who, besides being influenced by 
the general tendency of his political opinions, had 
spent some years in European courts, and had 
become accustomed to the regal pomp and splendor 



268 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

usually displayed in monarchical countries, was in 
favor of adopting something of the same state and 
parade in America. His opinion was that the office 
of President of the United States was superior in 
dignity and power to any political position in the 
world except that of some of the European kings, 
and that the state and ceremony with which the 
functions of the office Avere performed ought to cor- 
respond in some degree with its exalted character. 
Accordingly, Mr. Adams recommended quite an 
imposing system of formalities for the regulation of 
the president's intercourse with those about him — • 
such as regular applications for audience through 
the minister of state ; stated times for receiving 
visits; a corps of military aides, and masters of 
ceremonies for the presidential mansion, to guard 
the approaches to the audience room ; regular levees 
to be held at appointed times in great state ; formal 
and ceremonious entertainments, to which official 
persons should be invited in rotation on a regular 
system ; and an imposing equipage for tlie president 
when appearing in public, with four or six horses, 
and servants and outriders in livery. 



Hamilton, although in his general views of 
government belonging to the same school witb 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 269 

Adams, was much less advanced than he in his 
ideas of official ceremonial. This was owing, 
doubtless, to the fact that, while Adams had been 
for several years preceding living in the midst of 
the pomp and splendor of European courts, Hamilton 
had remained in this country, where he had lield 
daily intercourse with the people, and understood 
better the democratic tendency of the age. In his 
reply to the president's inquiry, he took care to 
say that, while he considered it important for the 
public good that the dignity of the presidential office 
should be properly supported, it was still highly 
desirable to avoid taking so high a tone as to shock 
the prevalent notions of equality. 

JEFFERSON. 

Jefferson, on the other hand, attached very little 
importance to these artificial modes of adding dig- 
nity to power. Adams, he thought, "had been so 
dazzled with the glare of nobility and royalty dur- 
ing his mission to England, as to be made to believe 
that their fascination was a necessary ingredient in 
government." He and those who thought with 
him, favored a plain republican simplicity in the 
action of the government, and his views in this re- 
spect as well as in others, gradually gained the 
ascendancy, until at length the universal sentiment 
23 



270 INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

of the American people has become entirely averse 
to all attempts to add to the prestige of office and 
power, by any external paraphernalia whatever. 

GRADUAL FORMATIO!^ OP THR GREAT FEDERAL AND DEMOCRATIC 
PARTIES. 

This diversity of views among the people of the 
country in respect to the fundamental principles of 
public polity, which first manifested itself, after the 
organization of the government, on this compara- 
tively unimportant question of etiquette and cere- 
monial parade, became gradually more and more 
mnrked, until, as has already been said, it resulted 
in the formation of two grand parties, which strug- 
gled against each other for national ascendancy for 
more than half a century. The formation of these 
parties was hastened, and the vigor of their animosity 
against each other was greatly increased, by circum- 
stances which grew out of the French revolution, 
and the wars between France and England which 
ensued. The French revolution was the result of a 
struggle for equal rights for all men, against hered- 
itary privilege and power ; while England, in con- 
tending against the French republic, took the atti- 
tude of a champion of the conservative principle, 
so-called, that is, a reliance for the pres'^rvation of 
hiw and order in any community, on retaining the 



INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 271 

governmental control in the hands of the upper 
classes of society. Of course in the contests 
between England and France which immediately 
arose, it was natural that Adams and Hamilton, and 
those who acted with them should sympathize with 
the British, while the party of Jefferson and Mad- 
ison would incline to wish success to the French. 
In the complications which ensued various incidents 
and events occurred, which, though it does not come 
within the limits of this series to relate them in 
detail, — tended strongly to involve the American 
government in the quarrel, and of course this state 
of things rapidly increased the sharpness of the 
line which divided the two great parties, and greatly 
aggravated the antagonism between them. 

The diflBculties and embarrassments, and the 
harassing anxieties and cares which Washington 
encountered in guiding the ship of state through 
this stormy sea were indescribably great. He was 
himself often nearly overwhelmed. But his wisdom 
and moderation, his calmness, his justice, his cau- 
tion, his inexliaustible patience and perseverance, 
tlie weight of his personal character, and the almost 
unbounded influence which he exerted over the 
minds of his countrymen, through the love and 
veneration with which h^ was universally regarded, 
enabled him tc come out triumphant in the end. 



CHAPTER X. 

WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 
SOON PUT TO THE TEST. 

Immediately after the organization of the new 
government, and before the machinery of the system 
had begun to acquire the momentum and steadiness 
necessary to enable any machinery successfully to 
meet and overcome the difficulties of its work, a 
series of remarkable events began to occur, relating 
not only to the internal condition of the country, 
but involving also, as was intimated in the last 
chapter, the relations of the American government 
to those of foreign nations. These difficulties had 
the effect of brino-ino- the new institutions somewhat 
prematurely to the test. To relate the course of 
the events which followed, and to show in what 
manner the system worked under this trial, would 
take us beyond the limits assigned to this series, 
which is intended to close with the establisliment of 
the federal constitution. This concluding chapter 
will, accordingly, contain some additional explana- 



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*'^^MiI't' I- 




WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 275 

tions in respect to the true nature of the compound 
government which had been established, as it de- 
veloped itself in operation, with a view of com- 
municating to the reader a more clear conception of 
the essential principles and characteristics of the 
system. 

THE ANGLO-SAXON PRINCIPLE OF GOVERNMENT. " 

The principle which forms the foundation of 
human government, according to the ideas of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, seems to be this: 

Any region of the earth's surface, the parts of 
which are so situated in relation to each other and 
to other regions surrounding it iis to make the 
interests of the people inhabiting it essentially 
commoM, constitutes naturally a country ; and the 
people of the whole region, by the act of a majority 
fairly ascertained, have a natural right to establish 
and maintain institutions of government for the 
whole, the dissent of a minority notwithstanding — 
whether that minority is diffused throughout tlie 
whole territory or occupies exclusively some minor 
portion of it. 

rUIS PRIXCIPLK ACKNOWLEDGED AND ACTED UPON BY THH 
ENGLISH PEOPLE. 

It is true that tiie British government is founded, 



276 WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 

in theory — or, rather, in the verbal expression of 
the theory — on the sovereignty of the crown. But 
tliis is only a formality of language, retained out 
of respect for its antiquity. The controlling power 
both in determining the political institutions of the 
country and in administering the government is 
now, and has been for several centuries, the will 
of the British people. It is, indeed, customary 
still to speak of the king or the queen as the 
sovereign, and tlie people as subjects ; and a species 
of formal and ceremonious homage is customarily 
rendered to the crown. But this is all entirely 
unreal. If a king attempts to govern the country 
in a manner contrary to the will of the people, they 
resist ; and if he persists, they dethrone or behead 
him. 

The sovereignty which nominally vests in the 
royal family in England at tiie present day is a 
matter of poetical sentiment or state parade alone. 
The real supremacy is in the Uiitional will. 

DIFFERENT MODES OF ASCERTAINING TlIK NATIONAL WILL. 

Thus the real foundation of government is in 
Engliind and America the same, though there are 
great differences in the structures built upon it. 
One of the most important of these is the difference 
in the mode of ascertaininor the national will in the 



WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 277 

two countries. In England, to ascertain the pre- 
ponderance of public sentiment the attempt is made 
to weigh tbe people. In America we are content 
to count them. 

TOE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED 

The doctrine tliat all governments derive their 
just powers from tiie consent of the governed is to 
be interpreted in conformity with the fundamental 
principles stated above that is, by the consent of 
the governed — must be understood to mean the con- 
sent of a majority of all those included within the 
limits of a region, which, whether more or less 
extensive, is so situated in regard to its geographical 
or other conditions as that tlie interests of the 
inhabitants are essentially common. In some cases, 
as for example that of Switzerland or Denmark, 
the region may be small ; in others, as in that of 
France, large. In either case, the right of the 
people to combine, and by means of a majority of 
voices, fairly obtained, to ordain and maintain a 
government over the whole, notwithstanding the 
lissent of any separate portion, is complete, within 
the limits of the region so situated. 

In other words the geographical or other con- 
ditions which determine for any region of the earth'a 
surface, a commufiity of interests for those inhabit* 



273 WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 

ing it. gives to a majority of the people so inhabiting, 
the right to give or withhold consent in the namo 
of all, to any government established over theru. 

EXAMPLES IN POIN'T. 

The truth of this doctrine, as a doctrine, is uni- 
versally admitted nnd practically acted upon in 
England as well as in America. If, for example, 
the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight were to wish 
to establish a separate government, the answer to 
their claim would be that the British Islands form 
a group so connected together that the interests of 
the whole are involved in and dependent upon the 
condition of every part; and that the people of 
every part must therefore, whatever their individual 
preferences may be, submit to be merged in the 
general population of the whole; and after being 
allowed their fair share of influence with the rest, 
must consent to come under such a system of civil 
polity as a major-ity of the whole number shall de- 
cide upon. 

The same is true in respect to Ireland. That 
island bears such a relation to the others of the 
group that a foreign or an independent government 
juling over it would endanger the security and wel- 
fare of the whole. Ireland therefore must be con- 
tent, so Englishmen maintain, to make common 



WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 279 

cause with the other islands, and to yield submission 
to such a government as a majority of the whole 
population of the islands sees fit to maintain. 

THE GHJNEKAL GOVERNMEN f OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The general government of the United States in 
all the three forms which it successively assumed, 
had its origin in precisely this principle — not stated 
perhaps at the time very formally, as a matter of 
theory, but felt practically as a matter of fact, 
namely, that such were the geographical and phys- 
ical features of the region occupied by these States, 
that the external interests so to speak, of the whole 
[)eople, that is, the interests arising from their re- 
lations to the other nations of the world, were 
inseparably united ; that no portion of this territory 
could be iudependeat of the rest without endanger- 
ing the rest, and that consequently it Avas right for 
the people of the whole region to unite and estab- 
lish, so far as these external relations and other 
subjects of common interest were concerned, one 
common government, to include the whole within 
its jurisdiction. 

T1I7 GENERAL AND THE LOCAL INTERESTS REQUIRING A DIF- 
FERENT PROVISION. 

There was, however, one peculiarity in the con- 
dition of the American States, which had perhapa 



280 WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 

never existed before in so marked a degree, in anj 
political community ; and that was that while in 
respect to their dealings with foreign nations and 
with the outer world at large, and to certain other 
functions of government more or less related to 
these, the interests of the whole region were com- 
Qon, — still, on account of the great extent of the 
30untrj, the diversity of soil, climate, and produc- 
tions in the different portions of it, and the varying 
circumstances under which the original settlements 
were made, the local and internal interests of each 
State, as well as the ideas of the people inhabiting 
them, were extremely diverse. Out of this state 
of things, which had perhaps never existed before 
in so great a degree in any political community, — 
tliat is, so great a unity of interest throughout the 
whole in respect to dealings with the world at 
large, conjoined with so great a diversity of ideas 
and interests in respect to social institutions and 
local legislation, in the different parts, arose the 
idea, — which is the great fundamental principle of 
the American system, of dividing the jurisdiction, 
and organizing over the whole one government, to 
hold a control entire, absolute, and supreme, over 
certain prescribed subjects of common interest, and 
over each part another government, witli a control 
equally entire, absolute and supreme, over all the 



WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 281 

private relations of ife, including social institu- 
tions and industrial pursuits of every kind. 

FUNDAMENTAL TDEA OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 

It was as if the people of the whole country had 
assembled together as one vast community, and. 
after having solemnly arranged the system of the 
Federal Constitution, constituted the Congress, and 
elected Washington as the supreme executive, had 
addressed the new government thus : 

" We, the people of the United States, acting 
together for this purpose, commit to your hands the 
exercise of supreme governmental power, in our 
name, over all that portion of the public interests 
that we hold in common ; namely, all that relates 
to our dealings with foreign countries, whether those 
of friendly communication and commerce in time of 
peace, or of hostilities in time of war, and with the 
tribes of Indians remaining within our territory, 
and also all that directly concerns the intercourse 
of the several States with each other ; — and these 
things only. 

'• We give you full power in respect to these sub- 
jects, to adopt, through Congress, such measures 
(is you deem necessary, and through the president 
and the other executive officers associated with him, 



282 WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 

to carry your measures into effect. To this end 
you are authoiized to enter the territory of any 
State, whenever you inay find it necessary to do so, 
in order to establish custom-houses, build forts, con- 
struct arsenals, armories, navy-yards, mints, and 
post-offices and post-roads, — and also to appoint all 
necessary officers, and employ all necessary labor, 
for the proper discharge of the duties assigned you. 

" In order to supply yourselves with funds for 
these purposes, you are authorized to levy duties 
on imports of merchandise, — making them uniform 
throughout the country, — and to collect the duties 
so levied on the arrival of the merchandise in the 
various ports, in such a manner as you may deem 
expedient ; and to assess other taxes, if necessary. 

"No State government will interfere with you 
or molest you in any way while engaged in the per- 
formance of these duties, but all will leave your 
way unobstructed and free. You, on the other 
hand, must confine yourselves most strictly to the 
special work committed to you. All the internal 
affairs of government, everything that relates to the 
social and civil institutions of society, and to the 
intercourse between man and man in the ordinary 
relations of life —everything in fact except the spe- 
cific branches of public business formally assigned to 
you is reserved by the States for their own regula- 



WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 283 

tion and control. In all these things the power 
of the States is absolute and supreme. We enjoin 
it upon you most strongly, to confine your action 
scrupulously and strictly to your own department 
of duty, and not to encroach in any way, by direct 
or indirect means, on the jurisdiction which we re- 
serve to ourselves in the capacity of separate pop- 
ulations of separate States, to exercise through 
State governments which we shall maintain in the 
several States for this purpose. 

" To guard against the danger that you may thus 
encroach upon theproper jurisdiction of tiie States, 
or that some State may, inadvertently or otherwise, 
encroach upon yours, we have provided for the estab- 
lishment of a solemn tribunal, to be constituted of 
judges who shall be men of veneiable age, of ripe 
experience, of the highest attainments in civil and 
constitutional law, and of national reputation for 
uprightness, integrity, and knowledge of public 
affairs. In case you, or any State government shall 
pass any act, or adopt any measure which shall be 
deemed an encroachment on the jurisdiction of the 
other, the question shall be brought before this tri- 
bunal, which, after a full hearing of both sides, 
shall decide it ; and their decision shall be conclu- 
sive and final. Whichever government, whether 
State or National, shall be found by this tribunal 



284 woRKiNa OF the system. 

to be wrong, it shall at once yield to the decision, 
and retire within the limits which the decision 
assigns to it." 

Such, expressed in the form of instructions from 
the people of the United States to the new govern- 
ment, were the powers committed to this govern- 
ment, and it was the work of carrying out thia 
system that Washington on his inauguration as 
President of the United States found before him. 

QUESTION OP THE SEAT OP GOVERNMENT. 

During the jurisdiction of the Continental Con- 
gress and the Congress of the Confederation, the 
seat of government, if government it might be 
called, was sometimes in Philadelphia, sometimes in 
New York, and sometimes in other places, as the 
exigencies of the war and the approach of danger 
to this place or that might require. The necessary 
accommodations for the few and feeble functions 
which those bodies possessed could be found in 
almost any place. But now that a real national 
power had been organized, which would go on 
increasing in the magnitude of its operations for 
centuries, as the wealth and population increased, 
it was manifest that a suitable and permanent seat 
of government would be required, where edifices 



WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 285 

for tlie ficcommodation of Congress, of the president, 
of the vnrious departments of the government, and 
for the residences of foreign ministers, might be 
constructed, on a scale and in a style corrfsponding 
in some derrree to the maojnitude and extent which 
the business of the government miiiht be expected 
in time to assume. After mature deliberation, and 
a full consideration of the cLiims of the principal 
existiiio; towns to the honor of beino; made the seat 
of govei'nmetit, it was finally decided to found a 
n^'w city fur this purpose; and a site. was selected 
by Washington himself on the banks of the Poto- 
mac, tiot many miles above his own estate at Mount 
Vernon 

THK CITY OF WASHINGTON. 

The place chosen was central in reference to the 
teiritory occupied by the States, and the situation 
was charming. By the unanimous desire of the 
people of the country the new capital was named 
Washington. The site on which it was to be built 
was at the confluence of two rivers, the Potomac 
and the Anacostia, the waters of which furnished 
access foi- vessels of great burden from the sea It 
l.iy witJjin t!.e limits of the State of Maryland, but 
the jurisdiction over it was at onca ceded to the 
Geneial Government and the city was immediately 



286 WORKING OF TUE SYSTEM. 

laid out, on a very extensive scale, and the con- 
struction of the necessary buildings immediately 
■•ommenced. 

TRANSFER OP THE GOVERNMENT TO WASHINGTON. 

So much time, however, was necessarily occupied 
by the deliberations and discussions, the legal for- 
malities, the drawing and examination of plans, 
and the works of construction, that it was not until 
the year 1800 that the seat of government could be 
transferred to the new capitol. The functions of 
the government have since that time centered there, 
and are performed on a scale of magnitude and 
extent comporting with the dignity and character 
of the Union. The appearance of the house of 
representatives at the present day, when assembled 
for the transaction of business, in the exercise of 
absolute power over all tbe foreign affairs of the 
country, and substantially over all the internal 
affairs which are of common interest, presents a 
very different speotacle from that of the old Con- 
federate Congress, consisting of thirty or forty 
members only, and they so dilatory in their duty 
that it was often impossible to obtain a quorum.* 

In due time other national establishments were 
* See engraving at the comraencement of llie cliapter. 



WORKING OF THE SYSTEM. 287 

created in various parts of the country by the 
general government, — all, however, for purposes 
confined strictly to the departments of business 
■with which that government had been entrusted, — 
namely, for the collection of duties on imports, fur 
the accommodation of the system of courts taking 
cognizance of questions of national character, for 
the postal system, for the management of Indian 
affairs, and for the naval and military defence of 
the country. There were navy yards established at 
Pensacola, at Norfolk, at Washington, at Brooklyn, 
at Charlestown, and at other places. The forts and 
other strongholds on the seaboard and in the inte- 
rior were transferred to the new government, and 
positions were selected for the construction of 
others. Armories and arsenals for the manufacture 
and storage of ordnance and arms wei-e established 
at Harper's Ferry, at Springfield, and at other 
])lace3 ; and military and naval academies for the 
training and instruction of ofiioers for the national 
crvice were founded at West Point and Annapolis. 

In a word, all the machinery for tlie regular and 
( ffioieiit performance of those functions of govern- 
ment which had been committed to the cuitral or- 
giniz.ition was arranged and put in motion without 
any unnecessary delay. 

In the meantime, the several State governmenta, 



288 woRKTNr, OF the system, 

(>ach within its own limits, went on in the exercise 
oF its own reserved powers. — having supreme and 
exclusive control over ;ill tlie internal and local 
interests of the communities comprised within their 
several tei-ritories, and discharo-in": their duties 
without hAnfr trammeled hy any connection with 
the general govt-rnm.'nt, still less by any depen- 
dence upon it, or responsi'ility to it, of any kind. 
The system thus inaugurateil, which, though 
compound in its structure, is still exceedingly 
simple in its principles, when riglitly understood, 
has now been in successful operation for three- 
quarters of a century. Under its beneficent action 
the country has :idvanced in wealth and population 
more rapidly than any nation of ancient or modern 
times ; and has. moreover, been carried by it safely 
through two foreign wars, and has been enabled to 
triumph over the most formidable rebellion ever en- 
countered by any civilized government witliin the 
period of history. We hope it is destined to endure, 
wiih such modifications as may be peacefully made 
in it, in accordance with its own provisions for 
change, till time on earth shall end. 

THE END. 






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